Monday Jun 19, 2023

The San Juan Star

Senate Puts Out Fire on Wage Claims

Approves $375 Monthly Increase in Base Salary of Firefighters

Judge Issues

New Orders in PREPA Debt Adjustment Case

NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL

Senators File Bill to Create Inclusive Recreation Law

US Officials Looking to Build Era of Diplomacy with China

The San Juan Daily Star, the only paper with News Service in English in Puerto Rico, publishes 7 days a week, with a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday edition, along with a Weekend Edition to cover Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Tesla Energy is working to launch a virtual power plant in Puerto Rico

By By THE STAR STAFF

Tesla Energy is working to launch a virtual power plant (VPP) in Puerto Rico using its Powerwalls, according to a company report, citing Senior Vice President of Energy Engineering and Powertrain Drew Baglino said.

VPPs can be used for a variety of reasons, but affordability and grid stabilization through sustainable energy are the biggest advantages, the publication, Teslarati, said. A virtual power plant (VPP) is a collection of small-scale energy resources that, aggregated together and coordinated with grid operations, can provide the same kind of reliability and economic value to the grid as traditional power plants.

Tesla has been operating its VPP program since 2021, when it launched in California, allowing owners to earn money by contributing stored energy through their Powerwalls to provide grid services. Puerto Rico is an ideal location for the program as the country routinely faces power outages and the government passed a law calling for the territory to draw all its energy from renewables by 2050.

Baglino was asked if Tesla had plans to launch a VPP in Puerto Rico where the population of Powerwalls is substantial. “We have over 350MW of Powerwalls in Puerto Rico that could help the grid shortage in Puerto Rico overnight,” Baglino stated in Teslarati. “We are working with Luma Energy Puerto Rico to activate a VPP for all Powerwall customers this summer.”

Baglino also said Tesla Electric customers in Texas will have a VPP launching there as well. It has already

started testing this month and the first VPP credits will be paid out to customers next month, the report noted.

Tesla Energy is the clean energy division of Tesla, Inc. that develops, manufactures, sells and installs photovoltaic solar energy generation systems, battery energy storage products and other related products and services to residential, commercial and industrial customers.

Drew Baglino - SVP, Powertrain and Energy Engineering - Tesla

Oversight Board to change debt adjustment plan, may reduce PREPA’s debt

These changes may delay the confirmation hearing of PREPA’s debt restructuring plan next month. It also is an indication that the FOMB may propose further cuts to PREPA’s debt. The current debt plan cuts it to about $5.68 billion, an amount that bondholders have already said is too low.

“The FOMB said it believes it is in all parties’ best interests that it simultaneously certify the 2023 PREPA Fiscal Plan and specify any necessary amendments to the Plan of Adjustment. Therefore, the Oversight Board informed the court that it could not responsibly certify the 2023 PREPA Fiscal Plan by its anticipated deadline of June 16, 2023,” the FOMB said.

back by the FOMB’s receipt and review of new information that came from outside the Oversight Board from, among others, PREPA, LUMA Energy, Genera PR, and the various parties’ advisors, including Ankura Consulting Group, LLC, and Siemens AG.

Swain ordered the Oversight Board to meet and confer with counsel for the objectors of the debt deal as soon as practicable after the 2023 PREPA Fiscal Plan is certified, and in no event more than 24 hours thereafter subject to the parties’ availability.

By THE STAR STAFF

Title III Bankruptcy Judge Laura Taylor Swain issued several orders Sunday after the Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) informed the court of its intention to change the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) debt adjustment plan after reviewing new information received from the utility and its private operators, LUMA Energy, and Genera PR.

The FOMB filed an informative motion in the U.S. District Court last week stating that the revision of PREPA’s fiscal plan, which was slated to be certified June 16 and is needed for the debt plan, was set back by the Board’s receipt and review of the new information.

“The Oversight Board is committing by no later than Friday, June 23, 2023 to certify the 2023 PREPA Fiscal Plan and to identify any necessary amendments to the Plan of Adjustment,” the Board added.

The FOMB said the amendments to the fiscal plan may or may not require solicitations “but given the proximity of the confirmation hearing’s commencement date, it is likely the Oversight Board (and other parties) may seek to change the confirmation schedule based on these developments, especially the June 26, 2023 deadline for witness declarations because any amendments could impact witness declarations,” the Board said.

The Oversight Board also asked the Court to extend the deadline for the court’s requested status report on the 2023 PREPA Fiscal Plan from June 21, 2023, to June 28, 2023.

According to the FOMB, the entire process was set

The Oversight Board was directed to upload to the Plan Depository the model and other source data supporting the 2023 PREPA Fiscal Plan as soon as it is available. Swain granted the Oversight Board’s request for adjournment of the filing deadline for the joint Status Report to June 28, 2023.

The Oversight Board was directed to meet and confer with counsel for the objectors and to file a joint status report by 2:00 p.m. on June 21, 2023, concerning whether and to what extent the parties believe that confirmation-related dates and deadlines should be altered or suspended in advance of the Oversight Board’s Status Report.

At a hearing earlier this month, Martin Bienenstock had told the court that new data show that energy consumption is declining more than anticipated. The Oversight Board and its financial advisers were reviewing whether the new load information changes projections for the future that would impact debt sustainability, he said.

Prepa has been in bankruptcy since 2017 to restructure some $10 billion in debt

PIP Senator files Resolution for disclosure of information by LUMA

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmchaul@gmail.com

Convinced that LUMA Energy’s determination to prohibit the collection, recording and disclosure of information on electric service interruptions or the famous “blackouts” is an action to evade accountability to the country, the representative of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), Denis Márquez Lebrón, filed Resolution 529 to order the entity to eliminate said prohibition.

“LUMA Energy, through these acts, intends to position itself outside the performance of accounts and intends to remain unaudited by entities that are dedicated, precisely, to collect available information to maintain the necessary transparency in any public service process. The acts of LUMA Energy in this case are totally contrary to what this company is supposed to pursue, which is to be accountable to the population,” said Márquez Lebrón.

HouseJoint Resolution 529 of the PIP legislator would mandate LUMA Energy to eliminate the prohibition on the

collection, recording and disclosure of information on utility outage data in Puerto Rico, by any independent entity, agencies, academic or community institutions, whether public or private, in order to create a more reliable and

complete source of information on outages or “blackouts” in our system.

“LUMA Energy’s own contract specifies that transparency in service metrics and statistics is one of the main responsibilities that this privatizer assumed, even more so when it comes to a service considered by the United Nations as a human right, that is its responsibility and we are going to demand that it fulfills it,” Marquez added.

For the lawyer, the Legislative Assembly must attend to its legislative measure as soon as possible “in order to promote the greatest possible transparency and provide the population with the proper tools to supervise public services.”

Last Wednesday, Juan Saca was appointed executive president of the energy consortium, effective July 1, 2023, as reported in a statement.

Saca, who previously served as executive director in Puerto Rico for Open Mobile and, later, PR Wireless, succeeds Wayne Stensby, who will return to Canada as chief operating officer of Calgary, Alberta-based ATCO Energy Systems.

Representative of the Puerto Rican Independence Party Denis Márquez Lebrón.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain

An Early Father’s Day gift for fathers risking their lives

By RICHARD GUTIÉRREZ Special to The STAR

- Senate approves salary raise for Firefighters -

The Senate passed on June 15 Senate Bill 1065, authored by Ramón Ruiz Nieves, to establish the “Special Law of Firefighters Basic Pay” that would provide a $375 increase to the basic monthly salary of firefighters, which starts at $2,500.

The goal is to retain and to provide a justifiable salary to firefighters, Ruiz Nieves said.

“What we are trying to do with this measure is to put firefighters at the standard they deserve so that we can stop them from moving on to other jurisdictions because these are high-risk professions, so we need to make changes to provide a competitive salary,” he said.

On the other hand, the New Progressive Party lawmaker said, “having cleared this up and identified it within the Budget Resolution, it seems there are no setbacks regarding the approval of this budget… With that said, we hear by declaring that we are in favor of the bill, me and all members of the NPP party.”

The Star had the opportunity to speak to some of the members of the Fire Department and ask them about their thoughts regarding this new legislation. The individuals will remain anonymous within this report.

One of the department members shared what it’s like to be a father while being a firefighter. “We may have eight hours registered in our schedule, but we don’t have a time to clock out; we simply have a time to clock in; if something happens during our time to clock out, we have to go and act immediately. It doesn’t matter if it’s time to

get out, people must be saved, so nobody at home can count on you coming home early for family gatherings. Sometimes we even have to miss our kid’s birthdays because we have lives to save,” the firefighter said.

“Our shifts are also constantly changing, so we can never be sure we’ll be there for graduations, birthday parties or soccer games; this increase in our salary really feels like a gift because it makes us feel like all of our hard work is being recognized,” said the firefighter to the Star.

The Star also interviewed Puerto Rico Firefighter’s Academy members, who will soon set off to become the next ones in the line of fire. “A firefighter is not just somebody who’s just playing domino all day and doing nothing, just waiting to be called. Firefighters need to check the trucks so that they are in top condition, the gas, oil, check that the truck is in one piece and does not have any damage, checking that all tools are in place, amongst many other things,” the academy member said.

The young man also shared that while the pay is motivating, being a firefighter is much more than a paycheck. “Being a firefighter means that you should have values and a good sense of morality. Once you have the symbol on your shirt, you have a moral obligation to the community. You are serving your country as soon as you have the symbol on your shirt. The incentive is a great way to motivate people who are outside of the department and want to be part of it. It also helps our daily lives, considering the cost of living in Puerto Rico is so high,” he said.

Besides the fact that many fathers in Puerto Rico and worldwide are firefighters risking their lives constantly, at any hour,

missing their kid’s ballet recital, there are plenty of other issues surrounding the force that this will attend. Another member of the fire department shared the difficulties of being a firefighter, and how beneficial this incentive will be for the department’s future.

“In all of the United States, including its territories, the Puerto Rico Firefighters Bureau has the lowest salary in comparison to all other states, we live on a tropical island, and considering the amount of heat we are currently receiving, fires are not going to be uncommon. Due to the way the land is distributed, fires can happen at any time. This raise in salary is very welcomed, not only taking into consideration the recent heat strokes but in general being a firefighter is a challenging career,” said one of the firefighters to the Star.

The work of a firefighter requires a lot of physical energy and strength, and cadets have to be in shape to manage risky situations and act quickly in complex and high-risk situations. This individual also shared “that the island needs more firefighters because of the number of fires that occur and that compared to many states, the number of fires that occur in Puerto Rico exceeds that in multiple states. Therefore the salary raise is very welcomed and will encourage young people to consider joining the fire department”.

The individual also told the Star that in addition to the high demand, the island needs more members in the force because the academies that entered the force in 1988 are nearing retirement. “A lot of our members are over the age of 55 and have not been able to retire because of the lack of personnel and 32% of these employees will be leaving soon. In these economic times, we require a more substantial compensation to head to our retirement with a pension that is worthy of the years we served Puerto Rico,” the individual said.

While the force members are very grateful for this raise, the firefighter who spoke with the Star also shared that salaries need to be reclassified. The last salary reclassification was in 1998, when Governor Pedro Rossello was still in office. “I urge the government to continue providing ways of recruiting more firefighters because retirement is coming at a steady pace. The next step should be to increase the number of supervisors in different areas. We need this endorsement from the Senate, as they have already done, and the Governor’s support. The process of making the fire department better needs to continue”.

Treasury says new budget will be balanced and with more revenues

By THE STAR STAFF

Treasury Secretary Francisco Parés Alicea says the budget for the next fiscal year that begins July 1 will be a balanced one and with more revenues than expenses. He said the yearly General Fund net income as of April 2023 reached $10.2 billion, representing an increase of $21 million compared to the same period last year.

“The importance of these revenues is significant, even when the implementation of Act 52 in February impacted revenues in the first quarter. We will end the fiscal year with a balanced budget, where revenues will exceed expenses, and we will comply with all the government’s obligations and debt,” said Parés Alicea in written statements.

He mentioned that, in April, revenues reached $1.8 billion, a figure that is $165.6

million less than that collected in April 2022.

Despite this decrease, the Financial Oversight and Management Board revised its annual projection for the fiscal year 2023, going from $11.1 billion to $12.8 billion.

“This revision was needed because revenue through March exceeded the original projection by $1.1 billion. In addition, a new tax regime for foreign entities went into effect when Act 52 began in February. Based on this

revised projection, April revenue should have been $284 million above grosses,” he added. He stated that although the revenue in February and March was below what was collected during the same period in 2022, the Oversight Board estimates an increase of $425.7 million for fiscal 2023 compared to 2022. In addition, projected income for the tax year includes $1 billion from other concepts, resulting in $13.9 billion.

Rep. calls on legislature, governor to identify fund for increase of teachers salary

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmchaul@gmail.com

The chair of the Education Committee in the House of Representatives, Deborah Soto Arroyo, called on majority and minority representatives and Governor Pedro Pierluisi to identify a recurring allocation to pay the salary increase of $1,000, approved by law, for teachers in the country’s public education system.

Soto Arroyo specified that, although this increase is not included in the new budget, it is guaranteed until 2025 through federal funds.

“The fact that this increase comes from federal funds, and is not identified in the budget, creates uncertainty in the teaching class. It is the responsibility of the executive and the legislature to identify where the funds for the increase will come from on a recurring basis. My commitment is to continue fighting from the House of Representatives,” Soto Arroyo said, while indicating that he is in communication with the chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee in the House of Representatives, Jesús Santa Rodríguez, and the Teachers’ Association.

The representative recalled that Law 10, which establishes a base salary for teachers in the public system, and provides that both the Department of Education

and the Financial Advisory and Fiscal Agency Authority (AAFAF by its initials), annually, must identify, separate, guarantee and certify funds necessary to meet the stipulated $2,750 as the basis of the salary.

“I will be very attentive in defense of the salary of the teachers of the country. Whether through federal or state funds, we have to fight to make that money available forever. They deserve the tranquility and

certainty that, as a country, that law will be honored,” Soto Arroyo said.

On Friday, Secretary of the Department of Education, Eliezer Ramos Parés, said that the recurring payment of the teachers’ salary increase is guaranteed for the next fiscal year.

This follows concerns that a provision for this was not included in the budget.

“He confirmed to us that the thousand-dollar increase granted to teachers is included in the agency’s payroll, guaranteed by federal funds until September 2024 and for the rest of the fiscal year with recurring state funds,” explained Victor Manuel Bonilla Sanchez, president of the Teachers Association in written statements.

Ángel Javier Pérez, general secretary of the Association of Teachers of Puerto Rico-Local Union, added that different alternatives are being worked on, including the collective bargaining process, to guarantee in the coming years the increase that raises the base salary of teachers to $2,750.

The leaders assured that the Teachers’ Association, together with its Local Union, continue to make efforts with the Department of Education, the Executive and the Legislative Assembly to identify between $500 $600 million dollars of recurring funds necessary to pay the increase from the fiscal year 2024-2025.

Senator files bill to create Inclusive Recreation Law

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmchaul@gmail.com

The senator of the Mayagüez /Aguadilla District, Migdalia González Arroyo together with the senator of the District of Guayama, Héctor Santiago Torres filed again the Senate Bill 1253 that seeks to create the Inclusive

Recreation Law so that all public parks must be prepared to receive people with functional diversity.

“This measure is intended to amend subsection (g) of Article 19 of Law 8-2004, as amended, known as the Organic Law of the Department of Recreation and Sports. It also seeks to install, identify and label recreational facilities for people with functional diversity, “ said in a written statement the Alternate Spokesperson of the Popular Democratic Party delegation in the upper house.

“It is of the utmost importance that our children with functional diversity have an equitable quality of life and recreation and that differences do not survive that make them different from their peers. If we break down physical barriers and bet on inclusion, we can facilitate the full social development of children and thus know the meaning of sharing, respect, inclusion, mutual help and fun for all, “said Senator González Arroyo.

According to Census data, 20% of the Puerto Rican population has some type of disability.

Law 8-2004, as amended, establishes in Article 19 that the Department of Recreation and Sports “must have in each municipality of Puerto Rico a park without barriers for the enjoyment of people with physical disabilities. This park must be enabled with all the necessary facilities so that the

population with disabilities can enjoy recreational and sports activities. In pursuit of the above responsibility, the Secretary of the Agency shall establish a five-year plan to comply with the construction of a barrier-free park in each municipality.”

The measure that had been filed on July 8, 2022, that sought to create the law, received an express veto from the governor on May 16, 2023, but in he turn promised to sign the new piece of legislation as soon as legislative language was corrected to include the Ombudsman for People with Disabilities.

Migdalia González Arroyo together with the senator Héctor Santiago Torres filed again the Senate Bill 1253.

Chair of the Education Committee in the House of Representatives, Deborah Soto Arroyo

In Nevada, DeSantis sells Republicans on ending ‘Culture of Losing’

By NEIL VIGDOR

In black boots, jeans and an untucked shirt — the fundraiser dress code specified “ranch casual” — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Saturday tried to persuade Republican voters in Nevada still loyal to former President Donald Trump that the party’s formula for winning elections was beyond its shelf life.

Headlining a conservative jamboree in the swing state, where loyalties to Trump still run deep, DeSantis never mentioned his rival for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination during a speech in Gardnerville.

But DeSantis sought to draw a notso-subtle contrast between himself and the former president, a onetime ally who is the party’s overwhelming front-runner in a crowded Republican field. He described last year’s midterm elections as another disappointment in a string of defeats for the party, while touting his more than 1.2 million-vote margin of victory in his reelection in November.

“We’ve developed a culture of losing in this party,” DeSantis said, adding, “You’re not going to get a mulligan on the 2024 election.”

DeSantis spoke for nearly an hour at the Basque Fry, a barbecue fundraiser that supports conservative groups in Nevada.

Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesperson for Trump, hit back at DeSantis in a statement to The New York Times on Saturday.

“Ron DeSantis is a proven liar and fraud,” he said. “That’s why he’s collapsing in the polls — both nationally and statewide. He should be careful before his chances in 2028 completely disappear.”

The Basque Fry has risen in stature since it was first held in 2015, drawing a stream of Republican presidential candidates to the Corley Ranch in the Carson Valley with its rugged backdrop of the Sierra Nevada.

Past headliners have included Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who earlier this month entered the race, had been scheduled to attend in 2017 but canceled because Hurricane Harvey was bearing down on the Gulf Coast.

It’s an opportunity for White House aspirants to make an elevator pitch to rankand-file conservatives in Nevada, a crucial

early proving ground that in 2021 replaced its party-run caucuses with a primary. Republicans oppose the change, passed by the state Legislature, and are suing the state to keep the caucuses.

DeSantis’ visit to Nevada punctuated a week in which Trump dominated the news cycle with his arraignment Tuesday in a 37-count federal indictment over his handling of classified documents after leaving office.

As Trump’s chief Republican rival, DeSantis did not mention the indictment outright, but instead echoed GOP attacks on the Justice Department and pledged to replace the director of the FBI if elected.

“We are going to end the weaponization of this government once and for all,” DeSantis said.

In 2016, the last presidential election during which the GOP did not have a sitting president, Trump won the Republican caucuses in Nevada, where rural activists and Mormon voters wield influence. He finished 22 percentage points ahead of his closest rival, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

During the midterm elections last fall, Trump campaigned for Republicans in Nevada at a rally in Minden, which is next to Gardnerville. The elections turned out to be a mixed showing for the GOP, which flipped the governor’s office but lost pivotal races for

the Senate and the House, including the seat held by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat who had been considered vulnerable.

Cortez Masto’s defeat of Adam Laxalt, a former Nevada attorney general who was the de facto host of Saturday’s fundraiser, helped give Democrats outright control of the Senate.

Laxalt, who was a roommate of DeSantis when they were both Navy officers, introduced him to the crowd of about 2,500 people.

“This is the kind of leader we need,” he said.

Laxalt began the Basque Fry in 2015, building on a tradition that was started by his grandfather, Paul Laxalt, a former U.S. senator and governor of Nevada who died in 2018.

Northern Nevada has one of the highest concentrations in the nation of people of Basque ancestry, a group that includes Laxalt, who also ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018.

Jim McCrossin, 78, a retiree from Virginia City, Nevada, who surveyed the ranch in a DeSantis cap, said that he had previously supported Trump but worried about his electability.

“I just think there’s so much hate for him,” he said, adding, “Trump’s been arrested twice, and that’s probably not the last time.”

He said that DeSantis “doesn’t have the drama.”

His household is divided: His wife, Jacquie McCrossin, said that she still favored Trump, even though she had on a DeSantis cap.

Shellie Wood, 72, a retired nail technician and gold miner from Winnemucca, Nevada, who sported a Trump 2020 camouflage cap, said that DeSantis would make a strong running mate for Trump, but that it was not his moment.

Still, Wood said DeSantis had made a positive impression on her with his record in Florida.

“He’s stood up against Disney, and that’s something a lot of people didn’t have the gumption to do,” she said.

DeSantis repeatedly reminded the crowd of his feud with Disney, which he and other Republicans turned into an avatar of “woke” culture after the company criticized a state law that prohibited classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity.

In the buildup to his formal debut as a candidate last month, DeSantis grappled with being labeled by the media and rivals as awkward at retail politics and in one-onone settings with voters.

Before stepping up to the podium, with the snow-peaked mountains behind him, DeSantis mingled with a group of VIPs for about 30 minutes in a reception that was closed to the news media.

Outside the reception, Casey DeSantis, the governor’s wife, who has been an omnipresent campaigner and influence on the policies of her husband’s administration, took selfies and signed autographs for local Republicans. She had on boots, too.

While Ron DeSantis impressed many of the attendees, there was still a pro-Trump undercurrent at the event. Shawn Newman, 58, a truck driver from Fernley, Nevada, who hovered near a table with DeSantis campaign swag while wearing a ubiquitous red Trump cap, said Trump was still his candidate.

“Trump’s above their reach,” he said of the other Republican candidates.

As DeSantis worked a rope line after his speech, one man handed him a campaign hat to sign. In his other hand, he clutched a Trump cap.

The San Juan Daily Star Monday, June 19, 2023

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis campaigns at the Basque Fry, an annual barbecue fundraiser for conservative causes, at the Corley Ranch in Gardnerville, Nev. on Saturday, June 17, 2023.

Harlem City Council election tests limits of progressive politics

housing in Harlem than any other candidate in this race,” Dickens said.

Her campaign, in turn, has questioned Salaam’s experience after his campaign appeared to be in deficit and over the $207,000 spending cap, before he filed amended paperwork.

The race then took a bizarre turn this past week at a women’s rally for Dickens when former U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., in recounting how Salaam had called him before entering the race, remarked that Salaam had a “foreign name.” Salaam responded on social media that “we all belong in New York City.” Rangel, through a spokesperson for Dickens, said he intended no offense and meant foreign as being unknown to him.

The two men spoke Friday afternoon and resolved the issue, representatives for both campaigns confirmed.

Ultimately, the race might be decided on issues more germane to the district, including the loss of Black residents, a lack of affordable housing and concerns about an oversaturation of drug-treatment centers.

police. “I don’t think that she had cornered the market on this community,” he said in an interview.

Jordan’s victory in 2021 over the incumbent, Bill Perkins, was less a districtwide endorsement of far-left views and more the culmination of “galvanized anti-establishment” sentiment that has been building against Harlem’s once powerful but now fading political machine, said Basil Smikle, director of the Public Policy Program at Hunter College.

“There is an interest in finding an alternative and setting a new course,” Smikle said.

Jordan, whose name will still be on the ballot, may have been her own worst enemy. She was criticized for using City Council funds to promote her campaign. Her far-left stances on policing, housing development and the war in Ukraine drew backlash from colleagues and voters. She missed nearly half of her committee meetings, city records show.

By JEFFERY C. MAYS

Two years ago, when a democratic socialist narrowly won a crowded Democratic primary for a City Council seat in Harlem, some saw it as a sign that the historically Black neighborhood was becoming more politically progressive.

But roughly a month before this year’s primary, set for June 27, the first-term council member, Kristin Richardson Jordan, unexpectedly dropped out of the race. Her decision has recast the hotly contested Democratic primary, which now consists of three candidates — none particularly

progressive.

Two are sitting state Assembly members: Al Taylor, 65, a reverend in his sixth year in the Legislature, and Inez Dickens, 73, who held the Harlem Council seat for 12 years before joining the Assembly. The third candidate is Yusef Salaam, 49, one of five men convicted and later exonerated in the rape and assault of a female jogger in Central Park in 1989.

All are moderate Democrats who, before Jordan’s withdrawal, had tried to distance themselves from Jordan and her political stances, which include redistributing wealth and abolishing police.

But with the incumbent out of the race, the candidates have turned on one another. Salaam questioned Dickens’ behavior as a landlord, asking her during a debate how many people she had evicted in the past two decades. Dickens initially replied one, but The Daily News found that approximately 17 eviction proceedings had been initiated.

Dickens said her family-owned management companies rent units below market rate, and that some of the tenants involved in eviction proceedings were in arrears for four years or more. “I have done more to preserve and protect affordable

The three candidates hold stances that underscore how the district will soon be represented by a moderate. Dickens opposed the so-called good-cause eviction measure, which would have limited a landlord’s ability to increase rents and evict tenants, had it passed the state Legislature. Taylor has in the past voted against abortion rights based on religious objections, but he recently voted to support a measure that would let voters add an equal rights amendment to the state constitution. Salaam supported congestion pricing but said he had reservations about how it would affect Harlem.

All three have garnered endorsements from mainstream Democratic groups and leaders: Dickens from the United Federation of Teachers and Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York; Taylor from the New York City District Council of Carpenters; and Salaam was recruited to run for the seat by Keith L.T. Wright, a former Assembly member and chair of the Manhattan Democratic Party.

The Greater Harlem Coalition voted to endorse Dickens before Jordan dropped out of the race. The carpenters union said their sole objective was to defeat Jordan.

Taylor said that not all of Jordan’s supporters necessarily supported her most left-leaning stances, such as defunding the

Jordan declined to comment. But Charles Barron, a left-leaning council member who represents East New York and is one of Jordan’s few allies on the City Council, said her leftist positions irritated mainstream Democratic leadership and their financial backers who “prefer establishment-type elected officials as opposed to independent, strong, Black radicals like she was.”

The remaining three candidates did not greatly differentiate themselves during a forum at the National Action Network in Harlem earlier this month and at a debate Tuesday night on NY1.

They are all in favor of the development of housing at 145th Street and Lenox Avenue, a proposal that Jordan initially rejected because it was not affordable enough. The candidates said they were not in favor of the city’s use of stop-and-frisk tactics, which a federal monitor recently said were being used in a discriminatory manner.

When it comes to the influx of migrants seeking asylum, Dickens, Taylor and Salaam said they support New York City’s status as a sanctuary city but questioned whether the billions of dollars being spent to house and feed migrants should also be available to New Yorkers experiencing homelessness.

None want Jordan’s endorsement.

Yusef Salaam, one of three candidates in the Democratic primary for a City Council seat in the historically Black neighborhood of Harlem, during a candidates forum in New York, June 9, 2023. The three moderate Democrats are running to replace Kristin Richardson Jordan, one of the city’s most left-leaning politicians, who dropped out of the race after a turbulent term.

Scathing report on police leaves Minneapolis reeling 3 years after Floyd murder

By ERNESTO LONDOÑO and DAN SIMMONS

The wounds of Minneapolis are far from healed.

T.J. Johnson, a resident of south Minneapolis for 40 years, says he is applying for a gun permit, having long ago given up on the police keeping him safe.

Veterans of the city’s Police Department, which has lost more than 300 officers, say they are running on fumes, weary from patrolling under a cloud of suspicion.

Elected officials are grasping for glimmers of optimism.

Three years after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, a Department of Justice report released Friday concluded that the city’s Police Department was plagued by unlawful conduct, discrimination and mismanagement. In some ways, it was meant as an answer to the death of Floyd and to years of complaints about policing in this city of 425,000. But the devastating report seemed to bring little closure in Minneapolis, where many remain traumatized and riven by mistrust.

The report — which found that Minneapolis police officers for years used excessive force, disproportionately targeted Black and Native American residents, and repressed the rights of protesters and journalists — likely landed differently in different parts of the city, said Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat who has lived in Minneapolis since 1984.

“There are probably a lot of people reading this report, especially people who live in Black and brown communities, who are saying, ‘This is terrible, but it’s not news to me,’” she said. “I think there probably are also people who live in more affluent parts of the city who may be surprised to see how pervasive the violations have been.”

Johnson said his brother spent his career working for the Chicago Police Department, so his views on the police are nuanced.

But Johnson said his faith in the Minneapolis police was irrevocably shaken after watching footage of Floyd’s death, images that in the spring of 2020 set forth outrage and protests nationwide. The video showed Floyd, a Black man, gasping for air as Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on his neck for nearly 9 1/2 minutes while fellow officers stood by. Johnson, who, like 18% of residents in Minneapolis, is Black, said he has concluded that the city’s Police Department is beyond reform.

“I stay away from them as far as I can,” said Johnson, 63, who runs an electronics recycling business and has attended the same church for 28 years. “White men and women, they don’t worry like we do.”

Johnson said he inherited a gun after his brother died, and recently filed paperwork to get a firearms permit. To him, he said, this was the best safety measure in Minneapolis, a city where carjackings and car thefts have been a major concern and where he worries about interactions with police.

“I’m planning on never going outside without my gun again,” he said.

Many Minneapolis police officers saw the report as a searing indictment that deals yet another blow to a department beleaguered by low morale and a staffing shortage. The officers’ union, the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, said in a statement that the federal report had glossed over vital and heroic work.

“The report will merely be used by those who are inclined to have an anti-police bias to justify their beliefs while those who are more pro-police will question the report’s findings,” the union said. “As with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.”

In interviews, longtime police officers said that they welcomed calls for sweeping changes in training and accountability. But they also said that many of the most egregious incidents in the report involved officers who have left the force, including Chauvin, who was convicted in Floyd’s murder.

“The cops are tired of being called racist,” said Sgt. Andrew Schroeder, who works in the department’s firearms unit and has been an officer in Minneapolis since 2014. “The

cops who are still here in the department are good officers, they want to do a good job and legitimately want to make the community better.”

Schroeder said that officers “don’t focus on color,” noting that city statistics from 2022 show that a vast majority of gunshot victims in Minneapolis are Black men, as are shooting suspects in cases where police are given descriptions. “We focus on crime.”

Mook Thomas, 27, sees things differently. Soon after moving to the north side of Minneapolis in December 2022 with her husband and five young children, she first encountered officers one night around midnight as she and her husband were driving home. She said they spotted a police car behind them on West Broadway Avenue, a major thoroughfare, and were eventually pulled over. They were told they were stopped for a broken headlight, she said, although she said both headlights worked.

“He’s harassing us, telling us we don’t belong over here,” said Thomas, who is Black and said the officer used racial slurs. After that, Thomas said she resolved to avoid Minneapolis police officers. She would not call them, she said, even if her life was in danger. Should they ever try to pull her over again, she said, “I would keep going.”

Thomas said she has never seen a Black police officer in her part of the city, where many residents are African Americans. The burden of rebuilding trust with people like Thomas will fall heavily on Cmdr. Yolanda Wilks, one of six Black female officers in the Minneapolis Police Department. She was recently tasked with overseeing sweeping changes the city agreed to make as part of a court-ordered agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. Following the Department of Justice report’s release, the city and the federal government have begun negotiating a court-enforced overhaul of policies and procedures, similar to the one already launched with the state.

In an interview, Wilks acknowledged that rebuilding trust and fixing long-standing institutional problems will take years. But she said she hoped residents also will recognize how hard recent years have been for officers who remained on the force.

“We forget that there are bighearted, passionate humans that work every day for the community they signed up to serve,” she said.

Wilks said that she came close to quitting in the tumultuous and painful days after Floyd’s death. She stayed, she said, because she had a sense that the city could recover.

“It will be a while,” she said. “An open wound takes time internally for it to heal.”

Mook Thomas, of Minneapolis, on June 16, 2023. The Justice Department’s devastating findings on the city’s police force left Minneapolis searching for next steps. Some residents found little closure. Thomas said she has never seen a Black police officer in her part of the city, where many residents are African Americans.

TJ Johnson, 63, of Minneapolis, on June 16, 2023. The Justice Department’s devastating findings on the city’s police force left Minneapolis searching for next steps. Some residents found little closure.

How could AI destroy humanity?

By CADE METZ

Last month, hundreds of well-known people in the world of artificial intelligence signed an open letter warning that AI could one day destroy humanity.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the one-sentence statement said.

The letter was the latest in a series of ominous warnings about AI that have been notably light on details. Today’s AI systems cannot destroy humanity. Some of them can barely add and subtract. So why are the people who know the most about AI so worried?

The scary scenario.

One day, the tech industry’s Cassandras say, companies, governments or independent researchers could deploy powerful AI systems to handle everything from business to warfare. Those systems could do things that we do not want them to do. And if humans tried to interfere or shut them down, they could resist or even replicate themselves so they could keep operating.

“Today’s systems are not anywhere close to posing an existential risk,” said Yoshua Bengio, a professor and AI researcher at the University of Montreal. “But in one, two, five years? There is too much uncertainty. That is the issue. We are not sure this won’t pass some point where things get catastrophic.”

The worriers have often used a simple metaphor. If you ask a machine to create as many paper clips as possible, they say, it could get carried away and transform everything — including humanity — into paper clip factories.

How does that tie into the real world — or an imagined world not too many years in the future? Companies could give AI systems more and more autonomy and connect them to vital infrastructure, including power grids, stock markets and military weapons. From there, they could cause problems.

For many experts, this did not seem all that plausible until the last year or so, when companies like OpenAI demonstrated significant improvements in their technology. That showed what could be possible if AI continues to advance at such a rapid pace.

“AI will steadily be delegated, and could — as it becomes more autonomous — usurp decision making and thinking from current humans and human-run institutions,” said Anthony Aguirre, a cosmologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a founder of the Future of Life Institute, the organization behind one of two open letters.

“At some point, it would become clear that the big machine that is running society and the economy is not really under human control, nor can it be turned off, any more than

the S&P 500 could be shut down,” he said.

Or so the theory goes. Other AI experts believe it is a ridiculous premise.

“Hypothetical is such a polite way of phrasing what I think of the existential risk talk,” said Oren Etzioni, the founding chief executive of the Allen Institute for AI, a research lab in Seattle.

Are there signs AI could do this?

Not quite. But researchers are transforming chatbots like ChatGPT into systems that can take actions based on the text they generate. A project called AutoGPT is the prime example.

The idea is to give the system goals like “create a company” or “make some money.” Then it will keep looking for ways of reaching that goal, particularly if it is connected to other internet services.

A system like AutoGPT can generate computer programs. If researchers give it access to a computer server, it could actually run those programs. In theory, this is a way for AutoGPT to do almost anything online — retrieve information, use applications, create new applications, even improve itself.

Systems like AutoGPT do not work well right now. They tend to get stuck in endless loops. Researchers gave one system all the resources it needed to replicate itself. It couldn’t do it.

In time, those limitations could be fixed.

“People are actively trying to build systems that selfimprove,” said Connor Leahy, the founder of Conjecture, a company that says it wants to align AI technologies with human values. “Currently, this doesn’t work. But someday, it will. And we don’t know when that day is.”

Leahy argues that as researchers, companies and criminals give these systems goals like “make some money,” they could end up breaking into banking systems, fomenting revolution in a country where they hold oil futures or replicating themselves when someone tries to turn them off.

Where do AI systems learn to misbehave?

AI systems like ChatGPT are built on neural networks, mathematical systems that can learns skills by analyzing data.

Around 2018, companies like Google and OpenAI began building neural networks that learned from massive amounts of digital text culled from the internet. By pinpointing patterns in all this data, these systems learn to generate writing on their own, including news articles, poems, computer programs, even humanlike conversation. The result: chatbots like ChatGPT.

Because they learn from more data than even their creators can understand, these system also exhibit unexpected behavior. Researchers recently showed that one system was able to hire a human online to defeat a Captcha test. When the human asked if it was “a robot,” the system lied and said it was a person with a visual impairment.

Some experts worry that as researchers make these systems more powerful, training them on ever larger amounts of data, they could learn more bad habits.

Who are the people behind these warnings?

In the early 2000s, a young writer named Eliezer Yudkowsky began warning that AI could destroy humanity. His online posts spawned a community of believers. Called rationalists or effective altruists, this community became enormously influential in academia, government think tanks and the tech industry.

Yudkowsky and his writings played key roles in the creation of both OpenAI and DeepMind, an AI lab that Google acquired in 2014. And many from the community of “EAs” worked inside these labs. They believed that because they understood the dangers of AI, they were in the best position to build it.

The two organizations that recently released open letters warning of the risks of AI — the Center for AI Safety and the Future of Life Institute — are closely tied to this movement.

The recent warnings have also come from research pioneers and industry leaders like Elon Musk, who has long warned about the risks. The latest letter was signed by Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI; and Demis Hassabis, who helped found DeepMind and now oversees a new AI lab that combines the top researchers from DeepMind and Google.

Other well-respected figures signed one or both of the warning letters, including Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, who recently stepped down as an executive and researcher at Google. In 2018, they received the Turing Award, often called “the Nobel Prize of computing,” for their work on neural networks.

Researchers and industry leaders have warned that artificial intelligence could pose an existential risk to humanity. But they’ve been light on the details.

New York Fed in-house forecasts point

The New York Fed’s in-house economic forecasting model is predicting a notably brighter economic future for the U.S. relative to three months ago, the bank said Friday.

The model, which the bank stresses is not an official projection of the bank but a tool for policymakers to use, now sees U.S. growth rising by 1% this year, up from a 0.2% projection in March.

The model also sees slightly higher inflation, with the core personal consumption expenditures price index - it’s stripped of food and energy factors — rising by 3.7% this year versus 3.5% in the last set of projections. Hitting 2% inflation, the Fed’s goal, is projected to happen by the close of 2025.

The bank tied the upgraded outlook to an improvement in longer-run inflation expectations, which bank analysts said affected productivity measurements, in turn boosting the growth estimate.

“Were it not for this data point, output and inflation projections would be a lot closer to those in March, with inflation actually a bit stronger throughout the horizon and output growth higher only in the short term,” New York Fed economists wrote on the bank’s website. “While the dependence of the forecast on one data point makes us uncomfortable, we chose to follow standard practice and incorporate it in the projections. Nonetheless, this dependence should be kept in mind.”

The revised New York Fed forecasts come just two days after the central bank decided to hold off on an interest rate rise for the first time since it started rocketing short-term rates higher in March 2022. As part of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, officials also released forecasts that showed higher expectations of growth and unemployment rises, while flagging expectations for further inflation declines.

The upgraded Fed forecasts come as the economy has shown unexpected resilience in the face of aggressive rate hikes. The tightening cycle has been dogged by fears that central bank actions would send the economy into a recession and at points models like the New York Fed’s have predicted contracting activity, even as they’ve now shifted gears toward strength.

Fed officials have long expressed confidence they could get inflation under control without causing undue pain, but that positive outlook has at points clashed with the view of central bank staff.

Meeting minutes from the Fed’s March policy meeting noted that at the Board of Governors, “the staff’s projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years.” Fed staff maintained that view at the May FOMC meeting, the minutes from that gathering noted.

The New York Fed model also said that the level of interest rates that’s neutral in its impact on the economy rose in its June estimate to 2.2% from March’s 2%, while it eases to 1.8% next year.

In China, Blinken faces clashing agendas and a question: Will Xi show up?

By EDWARD WONG and DAVID PIERSON

Antony Blinken landed in Beijing on Sunday morning, the first visit of a U.S. secretary of state to China since 2018. Tense relations have delayed the trip for months: He had intended to visit in February, but postponed after the Pentagon announced that a Chinese surveillance balloon was drifting across the continental United States.

Blinken and other U.S. officials have expressed hope that the visit might open a more constructive era of diplomacy. But China has maintained a confrontational stance in recent weeks, raising concerns that the meetings in Beijing could end up being more antagonistic than amiable.

Both sides bring a list of grievances and issues to discuss in two days of meetings that are likely to be a critical gauge of whether China and the United States can mend fences anytime soon.

What issues are on Blinken’s list?

U.S. officials have stressed that reestablishing highlevel diplomacy is their priority. They say the two sides need to establish channels of communication to defuse existing tensions that might escalate during a crisis — say, a collision between naval ships or aircraft in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea.

Security issues are likely to weigh heavily. U.S. officials have grown increasingly anxious over close brushes with the Chinese military in the seas around China. The United States is also closely watching Chinese efforts to establish military bases across Asia, Africa and

the Middle East, and it has warned China not to give lethal military aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Blinken plans to talk with Chinese officials about global issues where the two nations might have shared interests, including climate change and economic stability worldwide, said Daniel J. Kritenbrink, the top East Asia official in the State Department.

Blinken is also likely to ask China to release some U.S. citizens who are detained, imprisoned or banned from leaving the country, and to try to restart some people-to-people exchanges. Those might include expanding the small number of journalist visas that each

country had agreed to give each other early in the Biden administration before relations got worse.

U.S. officials also say they expect to talk to China about limiting the export of substances used to make fentanyl, a drug that has led to a deadly addiction problem in the United States and other countries.

What is China likely to say?

China is expected to raise a litany of grievances reflecting Beijing’s view that the United States is a declining hegemon determined to cling to power by containing China economically, militarily and diplomatically.

At the top of China’s list is Taiwan, a de facto independent island that Beijing claims as its own territory and that gets military aid from Washington.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has described Taiwan as “at the very core of China’s core interests” and has accused the United States of supporting “pro-independence” forces and meddling in China’s internal affairs.

China is also likely to express deep frustration over U.S.-led efforts to restrict Chinese access to advanced semiconductor chips and manufacturing equipment. The restrictions, which the United States says are necessary to prevent American technology from getting into the hands of the People’s Liberation Army, could set back China’s technological development for years. China sees the ban as an example of “zero-sum competition” that is driving the two countries toward confrontation.

Despite China’s rapid military buildup, Beijing is expected to accuse Washington of trying to provoke conflict by deepening security ties with regional powers including Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and India.

China says it ultimately wants the United States to treat it like a peer power so that it has equal say on the global stage and doesn’t feel threatened by the U.S. military presence in Asia.

Will Xi meet with Blinken?

One big question hanging over the trip is whether Blinken will meet with Xi. U.S. and Chinese officials were still working out the final details of Blinken’s schedule this past week, and there might not be confirmation of a meeting between the two until the last minute. Much will depend on how meetings go Sunday and early Monday.

The two men have talked before. Blinken has met with Xi on several occasions, including in 2011 when he traveled to Beijing and Chengdu as the national security adviser for Biden, who was then the vice president and charged with going to China to get to know Xi, his counterpart at the time.

Weighing in favor of an appearance by Xi might be his and other Chinese officials’ efforts to show a more diplomatic face to the world recently, including his reception of a series of foreign leaders in China this year.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing at the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.

President Joe Biden meets with President Xi Jinping of China in Bali, Indonesia, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022. The leaders could also potentially meet in San Francisco in November, during a leaders’ summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group of nations.

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The Taliban government runs on WhatsApp. There’s just one problem.

By CHRISTINA GOLDBAUM and SAFIULLAH PADSHAH

Late one night two months ago, a team of Taliban security officers assembled on the outskirts of Afghanistan’s capital to prepare for a raid on an Islamic State group hideout.

As the zero hour approached, the men fiddled with their automatic rifles while their leader, Habib Rahman Inqayad, scrambled to get the exact location of their target. He grabbed his colleagues’ phones and called their superiors, who insisted they had sent him the location pin of the target to his WhatsApp.

There was just one problem: WhatsApp had blocked his account to comply with U.S. sanctions.

“The only way we communicate is WhatsApp — and I didn’t have access,” said Inqayad, 25, whom The New York Times has followed since the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

He was not alone. In recent months, complaints from Taliban officials, police and soldiers of their WhatsApp accounts being banned or temporarily deactivated have become widespread, disruptions that have illuminated how the messaging platform has become a backbone of the Taliban’s nascent government. Those interruptions also underscore the far-reaching consequences of international sanctions on a government that has become among the most isolated in the world.

The United States has long criminalized any form of support for the Taliban. Consequently, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, scans group names, descriptions and group profile photos on the messaging app to identify users among the Taliban and block their accounts, according to a spokesperson for the company.

The policy has been in place since U.S. sanctions were enacted more than two decades ago. Even when the Taliban were an insurgency, the ban handicapped some fighters who relied on the app because it catered to people with neither literacy nor technological skills. Using WhatsApp’s voice message feature, they could send messages and listen to the verbal instructions from their commanders with the press of a button.

But over the past two years, the Taliban’s reliance on WhatsApp has become even more far-reaching as smartphone use

has proliferated and 4G networks have improved across Afghanistan with the end of the U.S.-led war. As the Taliban have consolidated control and settled into governance, the inner bureaucratic workings of their administration have also become more organized — with WhatsApp central to their official communications.

Government departments use WhatsApp groups to disseminate information among employees. Officials rely on other groups to distribute statements to journalists and transmit official communiqués between ministries. Security forces plan and coordinate raids on Islamic State group cells, criminal networks and resistance fighters from their phones on the app.

“WhatsApp is so important to us — all my work depends on it,” said Shir Ahmad Burhani, a police spokesperson for the Taliban administration in Baghlan Province, in northern Afghanistan. “If there were no WhatsApp, all our administrative and nonadministrative work would be paralyzed.”

The use of WhatsApp among the Taliban’s ranks began during the war, as the app gained popularity worldwide and cellphone towers began sprouting up across Afghanistan. Today, experts estimate that around 70% of Afghanistan’s population has access to a cellphone. Like millions across the globe, Afghans depend on WhatsApp’s speed and flexibility to communicate with

each other and the outside world.

During the war, Taliban fighters took photographs when they attacked government outposts and shared them on WhatsApp with their superiors and the insurgency’s media wing, said Kunduzi, a commander in the Taliban Army’s 2nd Regiment, who preferred to go only by his surname because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. “WhatsApp was a simple tool, and sending videos and photos via email used to take a lot of work and time,” he added.

Since the Taliban seized power, the popularity and accessibility of WhatsApp among the group’s ranks has grown rapidly. Former Taliban fighters began using their smartphones around the clock, no longer afraid that Western forces could use the signal to track or target them in drone strikes, they say.

As thousands of former fighters took up new posts as police and soldiers in major cities that were now under Taliban control, they also gained access to proper cellphone stores.

But the cat-and-mouse game of shutting down accounts has become a headache for officials in the Taliban administration — an almost daily reminder that the government they lead is all but shunned on the world stage.

No foreign government has formally

recognized the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. The U.S. government’s freeze on billions of dollars of assets belonging to the Afghan central bank has hindered the economy. Travel bans have kept Taliban leaders from meeting some dignitaries abroad. Some social media platforms including Twitter and YouTube, appear to have interpreted the sanctions more loosely and have allowed Taliban members to use them, but the country’s most popular messaging app is technically off-limits.

“We have one group of 50 people belonging to the Islamic Emirate, and 40 to 45 WhatsApp numbers in it have been blocked,” said Abdul Mobin Safi, a spokesperson for the police in Takhar province, in northern Afghanistan, referring to the Taliban administration as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Safi has been among those barred — a move that caused him to lose around 10 gigabytes of data, including old photographs and videos from the war, and the phone numbers of many of his colleagues.

“It’s like I have lost half of my memory,” he said. “I’ve faced a lot of problems — I lost the numbers of reporters, of everyone.”

Still, many whose accounts have been shut down have found workarounds, buying new SIM cards and opening new accounts, and turned the ban more into a game of Whac-A-Mole.

About a month after Inqayad, the security officer, was unable to reach his commanders during the night operation, he begrudgingly bought a new SIM card, opened a new WhatsApp account and began the process of recovering lost phone numbers and rejoining WhatsApp groups.

Sitting at his police post, a refurbished shipping container with a hand-held radio, Inqayad pulled out his phone and began scrolling through his new account. He pointed out all of the groups he is a part of: one for all the police in his district, another for the former fighters loyal to a single commander, a third he uses to communicate with his superiors at headquarters. In all, he says, he is a part of around 80 WhatsApp groups — more than a dozen of which are used for official government purposes.

He recently purchased a new unlimited data plan that costs him 700 afghanis a month — about $8. It is expensive for his budget, he says, but worth it for the app.

“My entire life is on my WhatsApp,” he said.

Inqyad, a Talib, uses whatsapp on his smartphone in Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 15, 2023. The Taliban administration is stuck in a cat-and-mouse game with WhatsApp, which is off-limits to the nascent government because of U.S. sanctions.

Uruguay has a large bronze Nazi eagle. It’s turning it into a dove.

By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE

An approximately 700-pound bronze Nazi eagle that once adorned a German warship and in recent years became the subject of a court case in Uruguay will be melted down and turned into a dove, the South American nation’s president said Friday, a move that he said would transform a symbol of “violence and war” into one of “peace and unity.”

Amid “times of division, in times of violence, times of war in the world,” the president, Luis Lacalle Pou, said at a news conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, that “the signal of our country to our people, to the outside world, is we are a society of peace, we are a society of unity and we practice it.”

The eagle — more than 6 feet tall and with a wingspan of nearly 9 feet, its talons holding a wreath-encircled swastika — was affixed to the stern of the Admiral Graf Spee, an approximately 12,000-ton armored heavy cruiser built by Germany in the 1930s. When the vessel was damaged in one of the first major naval battles of World War II, its commander scuttled the ship in the Plata River shortly after stopping at Montevideo, the capital.

In 2006, the eagle was recovered off the Uruguayan coast after a yearslong search by a private venture. But when those behind the recovery expedition tried to sell the eagle, the state moved to block any sale, fearing that the object

could fall into the hands of anyone seeking to glorify Nazism.

Nearly eight decades after the violent end of the Nazi regime, most of its iconography has been destroyed or is housed in museums. Other pieces from the Admiral Graf Spee wreck — including an apparatus used to measure distances and the warship’s anchor, both of

which are utilitarian Navy artifacts with no Nazi iconography — are now on display in public spaces in Montevideo.

But the existence of such a large intact Nazi eagle posed a problem for Uruguay, which had kept the artifact in its navy storage. In 2019, a court ordered Uruguay’s government to sell the artifact and give some of the money to the pri-

vate salvaging operation, a sale that the German government and Jewish groups warned against lest the object end up in the wrong hands.

A higher court overruled that decision and eventually gave the state custody of the eagle.

Lacalle Pou said Friday that plans to transform the eagle had been made even before that court ruling.

Now, Pablo Atchugarry, a renowned artist in Uruguay, has been selected to carry out the work. He is creating a dove out of Italian marble that will serve as a model for the new metal bird, he said at the news conference. The whole process will take months to complete, he said.

“This idea of transforming a symbol of hatred, of war, of atrocity into a symbol of peace — well, I feel very honored to be given the responsibility to carry out this task,” Atchugarry said.

Lacalle Pou described the decision to melt down the Nazi bird and create something new out of it as a “step forward.”

“I’m sure that nobody wants a symbol that represents war and violence to be displayed,” he said, adding that there was no sense in having it remain in the navy’s storage for decades more.

Although he said the dove’s ultimate location for display had not yet been decided, he suggested that it could be Punta del Este, Uruguay, a coastal city where the Plata River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Pablo Atchugarry, the Uruguayan sculptor, has been commissioned to transform a large bronze Nazi eagle into a dove.

A president governing from behind bars?!

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

Watching the torrent of invective and megalomania pouring from Donald Trump on Tuesday after his arraignment for a second time, what struck me was not so much the falsehoods as the desperation.

“I am the only one that can save this nation,” Trump declared. He spoke of “the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country” — meaning his own “persecution.” He denounced the special counsel, Jack Smith, as “deranged.”

Trump’s delirium didn’t seem to energize either him or the crowd, however, and this classic con man has seemed to shrink under prosecutorial scrutiny. It was difficult to avoid thinking of other leaders I’ve covered over the decades when they were scrambling to avoid prison; under investigation, they deflated before our eyes. Now the net is tightening around Trump.

An absurd question keeps nagging at me: Could an inmate in a federal prison get a leave to attend his own presidential inauguration?

I wonder about that because Trump seems to be moving simultaneously in two opposing and irreconcilable directions. First, it seems increasingly plausible that he will become the first former president to be convicted

of a felony. Second, he also seems increasingly likely to win the Republican nomination for president, with the betting markets also giving him about a 22% chance of going on and actually being elected president.

document and was sentenced to more than five years in prison.

Even if Trump is convicted and imprisoned, he could continue to run for office and even presumably hold the office of president, if he isn’t too busy in the prison factory making license plates. Eugene Debs, the socialist candidate, famously ran for president from federal prison in 1920, receiving almost 1 million votes.

I guess accommodations could be made so that prison officials didn’t listen in on phone conversations between federal inmate No. 62953-804 and Chinese and Russian leaders. Perhaps summit meetings could be held in a larger cell? State banquets in the prison dining hall?

One low-level precedent: Joel Caston, while serving a sentence for murder, was elected in 2021 to be an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Washington, D.C. But that’s an unpaid two-year advisory position, a bit different from the presidency.

If Trump is both incarcerated and elected president, perhaps his Cabinet could invoke the 25th Amendment and declare him unable to serve. But Trump presumably would carefully choose Cabinet members who would never do that. Alternatively, maybe if elected, would he try to pardon himself?

PO

Telephones:

Any defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But some smart lawyers believe that for Trump, the “peril is extreme,” as one former federal prosecutor put it. Trump’s own attorney general William Barr said, “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast.”

Trump could, of course, catch a break. The evidence from his own lawyer could be declared inadmissible in trial, or maybe the trial judge will allow stalling tactics by the defense, or maybe a die-hard sympathizer on the Florida jury will refuse to convict. But Trump could eventually be indicted in four separate criminal cases, and with so many cases swirling about, the odds increase that he may find himself convicted of at least some felonies.

He would be a first offender, and it’s not certain that he would do prison time. Officials so far have been very deferential toward Trump: He hasn’t been handcuffed or subjected to a mug shot.

Still, deference may end upon conviction, and defendants in less serious cases have ended up with substantial prison sentences. Just this month, a former Air Force officer was sentenced to three years in prison for keeping classified documents — and he had pleaded guilty and thus presumably received leniency. And during Trump’s presidency, Reality Winner leaked a single

Is it conceivable that voters would actually choose as president a man who had been convicted of felonies, or was about to be? It seems hard to believe, but I also thought Trump was unelectable in 2016. It’s notable that as the legal cases against Trump have gained ground this year he has also risen in Republican polling.

A plausible guess, based in part on the latest polling since the federal indictment, is that prosecutions could help him in the Republican primaries while hurting him in the general election. Looking ahead, news organizations must not drop the ball as they did in 2016, giving Trump a platform without adequately fact-checking him. We should enable democracy, not empower an anti-democratic demagogue.

All in all, I think Trump is going down. But my nightmare is that the United States slips into a recession that voters blame on President Joe Biden, that there is a Middle East crisis that raises oil and gas prices, and that there is a third-party candidate who draws more votes from Biden than from Trump. Or perhaps Biden has a health crisis and the Democratic nominee is Kamala Harris, who I fear would be a substantially weaker candidate. In short, Trump’s election as president seems unlikely, but not impossible — and the consequences could be catastrophic.

A sitting president governing from behind bars? It’s utterly unimaginable — right? The uncertainty speaks to a tragedy for our nation.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in Bedminster, N.J., June 13, 2023. “Watching the torrent of invective and megalomania pouring from Donald Trump on Tuesday after his arraignment for a second time, what struck me was not so much the falsehoods as the desperation,” writes New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

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La representante por el Distrito 19, Jocelyne M. Rodríguez Negrón radicó el pasado martes dos piezas legislativas dirigidas a desarrollar talleres educativos sobre el uso y manejo de torniquetes como medida de primer auxilio en casos de trauma que ocurran en agencias de gobierno y escuelas públicas.

Se trata de los Proyectos de la Cámara 1785 y 1786, que crearían la “Ley para establecer el uso de torniquetes en las Agencias Gubernamentales y Escuelas Públicas de Puerto Rico” y “Ley para establecer el taller de uso y manejo de torniquetes en las Agencias Gubernamentales y Escuelas Públicas de Puerto Rico”, respectivamente.

“Las piezas legislativas buscan propiciar que se canalicen esfuerzos educativos y operacionales para atender situaciones de emergencias en casos de trauma que ocurran en instituciones gubernamentales y planteles escolares del sistema público de enseñanza”, explicó Rodríguez Negrón, quien comparte la autoría de la medida con el director y cirujano del Centro de Trauma, el doctor Pablo Rodríguez Ortiz.

Según datos recientes, el 50% de los pacientes que llegan al Centro de Trauma fallecen en los primeros cinco minutos, mientras que el 30% de éstos lo hacen en

una hora. Las estadísticas señalan que el 80% de estos pacientes fallece en una hora.

“Estos datos son alarmantes, ya que en nuestro País no existen registros de talleres donde se pueda explicar la importancia de salvar vidas. Por ejemplo, en Estados Unidos y Europa han creado una serie de campañas dirigidas a preservar vidas durante una emergencia. Estas iniciativas van dirigidas a poder informar y concienciar

a la población sobre cómo poder realizar los primeros auxilios y para saber reaccionar ante un evento de hemorragia por sufrir un trauma”, expresó Rodríguez Negrón.

“Mi compromiso con la salud de todos los puertorriqueños es inquebrantable. Estas medidas van dirigidas a capacitar a empleados y estudiantes en cómo manejar y utilizar un torniquete. Su aplicación debe ser tema prioritario y crear conciencia en todas las agencias gubernamentales y escuelas públicas del País. Es un hecho que las hemorragias no controladas asociadas a traumas graves siguen siendo en la actualidad una de las principales causas de mortalidad en las emergencias prehospitalarias, por lo que la aplicación del torniquete, dispositivo de fácil aplicación, sin duda salvaría muchas vidas”, sentenció la representante del distrito que comprende los municipios de Mayagüez y San Germán.

Por último, estas medidas legislativas procurarán que el método conocido como torniquete esté accesible en todas las agencias y escuelas públicas y a su vez, se adiestre compulsoriamente a empleados gubernamentales y estudiantes para que puedan responder y reaccionar ante la eventualidad de un suceso que requiera acción inmediata para preservar la vida de un ser humano.

Teal Embrace: Grupo de apoyo libre de costo para pacientes de cáncer cervical

Con el fin de brindar apoyo a pacientes en con diagnóstico y tratamiento activo de cáncer cervical, la iniciativa de Las Voces de Rhaiza Vélez Plumey de VOCESPR, realizará un grupo de apoyo libre de costo, bajo el nombre Teal Embrace, el sábado, 24 de junio a las 10:00 a.m. en su Centro de Comunidades Saludables, localizado en el 2ndo nivel de Plaza Las Américas.

“Un diagnóstico de Cáncer impacta no solo al paciente que recibe la noticia sino a sus seres queridos cercanos. Son muchas las palabras de aliento que nos brindan con la mejor intención, pero no necesariamente surten efecto. Debemos recordar que hoy con los avances de la ciencia, Cáncer es solo una palabra, no significa sentencia. Hablar con otras personas que han pasado o están pasando por la situación similar te ayuda a afrontar el proceso. Me entusiasma esta iniciativa , la cual tiene como objetivo brindar ese apoyo que tanto se necesita”. expresó Myra I. Plumey, mamá de Rhaiza Vélez Plumey.

La experiencia facilita al paciente como a su grupo de apoyo, a manejar las distintas emociones que ocurren tras el diagnóstico y tratamiento. Teal Embrace es un espacio seguro y confidencial para que las pacientes

expresen sus emociones y preocupaciones relacionadas al cáncer cervical junto a la Lcda. Sandra López, sicóloga.

“El legado de Rhaiza Vélez Plumey es la motivación de iniciativas como Teal Embrace, para que las pacientes cuenten con un grupo de apoyo donde puedan discutir sus inquietudes y preocupaciones, brindándole herramientas efectivas para el manejo de su salud emocional”, comentó Lilliam Rodríguez Capó, CEO y fundadora de Voces.

El cáncer cervical es causado por el virus del papiloma humano (VPH) y Puerto Rico cuenta con la vacuna para los niños, las niñas, los adolescentes y adultos mayores hasta los 45 años. Desde su inicio Las Voces de Rhaiza ha hecho el llamado a la vacunación contra el VPH para evitar que ni una mujer más muera por un cáncer prevenible mediante la vacunación.

El grupo de apoyo Teal Embrace cuenta con una cantidad limitada de espacios, por lo que se urge a las personas con diagnóstico y tratamiento activo que deseen participar, a que reserven su espacio con anticipación.

Registro libre de costo en https://voces-teal-embra-

ce.eventbrite.com. ¡Espacios limitados! Más información sobre Las Voces de Rhaiza en lasvocesderhaiza. com, vocespr.org, y las redes sociales en Facebook e Instagram, o llamando al 787-789-4008.

Radican legislación para que agencias y escuelas públicas fomenten talleres sobre uso del torniquete para salvar vidas

Representante por el Distrito 19, Jocelyne M. Rodríguez Negrón.

‘The Flash’ review: Electric company

By MANOHLA DARGIS

The Flash, the latest DC Comics superhero to get his very own big show, isn’t the outfit’s usual brooding heavyweight. He’s neither an old-style god nor new (aka a billionaire), but an electrified nerd who joined the superranks by accident, not by birthright or by design. Out of uniform, he is a normie, a goof and kind of endearing. He’s really, really fast on his feet, you bet. But what makes him pop onscreen is that when things go bigger and grimmer here, as they invariably do in blowouts of this type, he retains a playful weightlessness.

That’s a relief, particularly given how the movie tries to clobber you into submission. Big action-adventures invariably give the viewer a workout, smacking you around with their shocks and awesomeness, though it sometimes feels as if contemporary superhero movies have taken this kind of pummeling to new extremes. That may be true, though movies have long employed spectacle — pyrotechnics, lavish set pieces — to bait, hook and bludgeon the audience so it keeps begging for more. If the bludgeoning feels more inescapable these days, it’s partly because the major studios now bank so heavily on superhero movies.

“The Flash” is one of the more watchable ones. It’s smartly cast, ambitious and relatively brisk at 2 1/2 hours. The story tracks Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) and his superhero persona, the Flash, as he whooshes, wrapped in tendrils of lightning; traverses space-time continuums; and tries to exonerate his father (Ron Livingston), who’s in prison for killing Barry’s mom (Maribel Verdú). As is usually the case with superhero

movies, the story is nonsensical and convoluted — it’s no wonder a character uses a tangle of cooked spaghetti to try to explain a major plot point — but not calamitously so. The overall vibe is upbeat.

Some of that liveliness comes from Miller, a tense and almost feverishly charismatic presence. (Their well-publicized offscreen troubles hang like a cloud over this movie.) Some of the Flash’s appeal, of course, is also baked into the original comic-book character, “the fastest man on Earth,” who first hit in 1940 (via creators Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert) and was revamped (by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino) in 1956. Five years later in Issue No. 123, these versions of the Flash (there are others) discover that they exist on two seemingly separate Earths, an idea this movie, well, runs with by introducing parallel DC Comics realms.

It’s a conceit that pays off the second a shambolic Michael Keaton makes his entrance as a graybeard puttering about a near-derelict Wayne Manor. Having hung up his Bat-suit in his reality (while DC has repeatedly rebooted the franchise in ours), Bruce appears to have entered the Howard Hughes chapter of his cosseted life when Barry drops by. Long story short, the two rapidly join forces, dust off the Batcave tech, furrow their brows and suit up, as other members of the DC stock company join the party, including Alfred Pennyworth (Jeremy Irons), General Zod (Michael Shannon) and Supergirl (Sasha Calle).

The entrance of these company players are timed like special-guest appearances — ladies and gentlemen, Zod the Zaniac! — and they’re obviously meant to delight true believers. To a degree, they also feel as if they’ve been brought

in to shore up the Flash during his first stand-alone outing. Cramming the screen with established names to hedge their expensive bets is an old-fashioned studio gambit, whether in a 1920s musical revue or 1970s disaster flick. Whatever the rationale here, the results are amusing — and it’s especially nice to see Keaton, who first played Batman in Tim Burton’s 1989 film. He seems to be having a good time, and when he looks in the mirror approvingly, it’s easy to share in his selfadmiration.

Working from a script by Christina Hodson, director Andy Muschietti keeps these pieces greased and quickly moving — although he almost blows it as soon as the movie begins. It opens with an unfunny protracted bit in which Barry, who’s late for work, orders a sandwich from a pokey server. (That the first villain in the story is a service worker is a choice.) While the guy readies the order, Barry turns into the Flash to help his world’s Batman (an uncredited Ben Affleck) dispatch some villains. It goes as expected — bam, splat — but then a hospital wing collapses, and newborn babies go flying, hurtling toward the street.

It’s a creepy setup that Muschietti milks for laughs that become queasier and ickier the longer and the more gleefully flamboyant the scene plays out. It’s absurd, outrageous, digitally fabricated and needless to say the Flash will save the day. The problem is that Muschietti, who has a talent for fraying your nerves with images of child endangerment (as he showed in the “It” horror flicks), is so obviously pleased with these airborne babies that he keeps showing off (turning a microwave into a bassinet), which drains the sequence both of its outlandish comedy and of any tension that might make the Flash’s heroism resonate.

The movie more or less recovers, settling into its lively groove, even if the Flash remains a curiously uncertain presence. Surrounding him with bigger superheroes may have made branding sense, but the net effect is that the movie never persuasively establishes the Flash as a confident standalone entity. That may make the question of Miller playing him in the future moot. Who knows? Last year, Miller apologized for their behavior and said they were seeking treatment for “complex mental health issues.” I liked “The Flash” well enough while watching it. But thinking and writing about it and everything that has gone down has been dispiriting — real life has a way of insinuating itself into even betterwrought fantasies.

‘The Flash’

Rated PG-13 for superhero violence. Running time: 2 hours 24 minutes. In theaters.

Ezra Miller as the title character and Sasha Calle as Supergirl in “The Flash.”

Hoping to travel abroad? Don’t put off your passport application.

to the public this past August. Then government suspended online renewal March 8, saying it would review customer feedback and make improvements.

Although some users reported positive experiences with the online system, others were frustrated. Mina Zimmerman, a Los Angeles resident, submitted an expedited application Jan. 24 to renew her passport in time for her 15th wedding anniversary, which she planned to celebrate in Mexico April 2 — plenty of buffer time, she thought, for what the government said would be a three- to five-week wait.

But five weeks after her application was received, it hadn’t been processed. Despite repeated phone calls, Zimmerman was unable to get through. At times she even had trouble loading the website.

“It was a terrible experience, because you just had no help anywhere,” she said, adding that, as the date of her trip approached, she began to panic.

Ultimately, Zimmerman found help on Reddit. Other passport applicants advised her to call a tech support line, where she found help. Her passport arrived more than seven weeks after she applied, and two weeks before her trip.

By ISABELLA KWAI

With international travel beckoning this summer, Americans applying for new or renewed passports will have to practice patience: The State Department warned that it will take even longer to get their documents.

As of March 24, routine processing of passports will take 10 to 13 weeks, and expedited processing, which costs an extra $60, will take seven to nine weeks. That’s a two-week increase from the previous timeline.

Applicants have been frustrated for years over the passport application system. Staffing shortages during the pandemic continue to cause extensive delays and a scarcity of in-person appointments.

Lawmakers have vowed to solve the backlog, and the State Department piloted an online renewal system that was briefly offered to the public before being paused. But with a surge of applications and an especially busy summer travel season ahead, any significant easing of the jams may be a distant reality.

Why is it taking so long to get a passport?

The current delays were set off at the beginning of the pandemic, when demand for travel documents dropped and employees were let go or reassigned to other tasks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a recent budget hearing.

“Emerging from COVID, we had to build back. And we have been in an intense effort to do that,” he said, adding that demand for travel has surged. In the 2022 fiscal year, the department issued nearly 22 million passports, the highest on record. The number is expected to increase this year.

The department receives about 500,000 passport appli-

cations each week, about 30% more than during the same time last year.

“In 40 years, I can honestly tell you I’ve never seen it this bad,” said David Alwadish, the founder of itseasy.com, a passport and visa expediting service. The bulk of Alwadish’s clients have already paid for expedited processing, he said, and many are desperate to secure a passport in time for a trip.

Travelers who need documents within 14 days can call to book an in-person appointment at a passport center. But callers who are hoping to secure an appointment or get updates on their submitted application have reported long hold times. Multiple attempts in late March to call the number listed on the State Department’s website were met with a busy tone. A spokesperson for the department said they were increasing the number of lines and staff to handle the influx of calls.

What’s being done to speed things up?

Blinken said a task force has been established to speed up processing. And hundreds of additional staff are in the hiring pipeline, according to a State Department spokesperson. Existing staff are working overtime, and others have been enlisted from across the department to help with the demand.

The budget for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, which provides passport services to U.S. citizens, has also been increased by nearly $211 million. The increase has funded contract labor, higher postage costs and new initiatives such as online passport renewal, which the government began testing last year to make it more convenient for passport holders to renew their documents.

What happened to the online renewal program?

More than 500,000 people successfully applied online to renew their passports since the service was first offered

“They definitely made the right decision to shut it down for now,” she said of the online renewal program, adding that she thought the website needed to be better equipped to handle the traffic and offer regular updates.

What if I need to travel this year?

The consensus from immigration experts and officials is to check your passport expiration date before making international plans — and to renew it as early as possible, if necessary.

With the online process suspended, applicants can still renew by mail or make appointments at passport acceptance facilities, which can include post offices, libraries and local government offices. Appointments are limited, however and some applicants have reported traveling beyond their local office to snag one. Fuji Whittenburg, the chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association State Department Liaison Committee, recommends taking care to ensure the forms are completely filled out and that the correct fees are included with a money order or check.

If possible, she said, opt for expedited passport processing ($160 for a renewal for an adult, plus the $60 fee for expediting) and expedited postage ($19.53) to mail your old passport and return the new passport. The entire process should take between seven and nine weeks, with a day or two on either end for shipping.

If you need to travel imminently, within 14 days, you can try to book an in-person appointment at a passport agency. If all else fails, both Whittenburg and Alwadish suggest reaching out to your congressperson or your senator with your passenger record locator.

If you want to avoid the ordeal a little longer? Travel within America, Alwadish said.

A passport is stamped at the Customs & Border Protection facility at Kennedy Airport in New York, May 28, 2014. Processing times for new and renewed passports have increased again. As of March 2023, the wait is 10 to 13 weeks, leaves some would-be travelers feeling desperate.

This kind of walk is much more than a workout

By JANCEE DUNN

Welcome to the first installment of Well’s series dedicated to walking tips and inspiration.

This time, we’re exploring “awe walks,” outdoor rambles intended to cultivate a sense of amazement. To help, I enlisted Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.”

Awe, Keltner explained, is that complex emotion we experience when encountering something so vast that our sense of self recedes. It can be positive or negative (like the feelings that come from witnessing violence or death), but the awe that feels good is the type found in moments of wonder and humility.

Many people associate awe with places like the Grand Canyon, Keltner said. But some feel it more frequently in response to commonplace things like a nighttime sky blazing with stars, he said. In short: Awe is more accessible than you might think.

And research suggests it’s good for your health, too. Awe can help calm the nervous system, reduce inflammation and foster a sense of community (even if you experience the emotion alone). People who took awe walks, one study found, felt more upbeat and hopeful than walkers who did not.

These walks also have restorative benefits, said Keltner, who has seen the positive effects firsthand. When his daughter was younger, she had anxiety and became preoccupied with dying, he said. So they began to take nightly awe walks to a giant cedar tree in their neighborhood. Together, they touched the tree’s bark and talked about the cycle of life. As the months passed, this ritual connected them to nature and each other, Keltner said, as his daughter went from being “freaked out about dying” to getting “a sense of ‘this is just part of life.’”

“An awe walk can be a healing ritual,” he said. “Twelve years later, I still walk to touch that tree.”

Ready to try it? Here’s how: Decide on a place.

You can pick somewhere you’ve never been, Keltner said, adding that you’re more likely to feel awe in an environment where the sights and sounds are unfamiliar — a lo-

cal park or trail you’ve never visited, a new neighborhood in your city or town, a body of water if you live near one. Or you can travel to a familiar spot and imagine that you’re seeing it for the first time, he said.

No matter where you go, the fleeting beauty of a dawn sky or sunset has been shown to cultivate awe.

Once you’ve arrived at your spot, give yourself at least 20 minutes of uninterrupted time. If you can, turn off your phone. Then take a few deep breaths “to shift out of our hyper task-focused mind,” Keltner said. Breathe in for four counts, hold for four, breathe out for six. Do this for a few minutes. Then start walking.

Pay attention to your senses.

Heading outside hoping to be awed can seem daunting, but try not to put too much pressure on yourself, Keltner said. Instead, he said, just be open.

Take in the sights, sounds and scents that usually escape your awareness but have the potential to raise goose bumps. When something catches your attention, “stop and pause and feel,” Keltner said.

Sense the wind on your face. Touch the petals of a flower. Tune into the sounds of what Rachel Carson, the American marine biologist and the author of “Silent Spring,” once called the “living music” of “insect orchestras.”

Keltner often gives his students an as-

signment: to simply notice the sky. His students examine the colors, clouds and how the vista can change in an instant. “They’re blown away,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘I haven’t looked at the sky in years.’”

Start small.

When you’re on your walk, get in the habit of pausing and homing in on a detail —

a ripple on a lake, an ant moving industriously through the grass — then, slowly expand your field of vision. The shift in focus to vastness can sometimes inspire awe, Keltner said.

Or pan from the ground to the sky. If you’re in a city or the suburbs, he said, fix your gaze on a window or doorway, and then move it up. (Until I tried this exercise, I’d never noticed how many building rooftops in my town had statues and carvings of animals, human faces and even gargoyles.)

What Keltner calls “part to whole” focusing can apply to people, too. If you’re in a crowd, start with one person and zoom out to take in the whole system of human activity, he said. “Walk by a pickup basketball game, and you’ve got enough humanity for a Shakespearean play,” he said.

I’m an early riser, so I’ve started taking awe walks at dawn. I watch the sky change from violet to orange to fuchsia and have seen a small colony of bees wake up and start to work. I even discovered a nest of baby robins, lodged snugly in a juniper bush two blocks from my house. Now I walk there every morning and listen to their faint, reedy chirping.

Like Keltner’s strolls with his daughter to the cedar tree, seeing the nest every day sustains me, somehow. I feel a twinge that the robins will leave soon. Until I find another wondrous sight to delight me, I’ll keep walking — phone stashed, eyes and ears open.

Incorporating awe into your daily stroll can bring mental and physical benefits. Here’s how to get started.

The scrumptious scent of charred chicken

By GENEVIEVE KO

In her book “Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal,” Mary Roach explores how we taste and explains how we can perceive five main flavors, but infinite smells. “Eighty to 90 percent of the sensory experience of eating is olfaction,” she writes.

That’s why grilled chicken legs taste especially good in summer, when their smokiness mingles with the fragrance of sunscreen and ocean air, grass and beer. It’s an aroma that takes me back to church picnics and others to block parties, the sort of gatherings where you’re with your community — not necessarily friends or compatriots, or even people you like, but the humans who make life fuller and a little less lonely.

That immediately recognizable charred chicken scent transports anyone who smells it to good times — and is worth re-creating. The best way is to start with skin-on pieces, ideally legs or drumsticks. As the chicken heats up, the fat in and under the skin renders, sizzles and releases the meaty haze that pulls at an urgent, primal hunger.

The trick is to lightly char the skin to a crackling dark brown, while making sure the meat is fully cooked and juicy. When the fat drips into the grill, it causes flames to lap around the chicken. If the pieces end up engulfed in live fire, they become inedible, with the skin burned to an acrid ash around cold raw meat.

Some avoid that outcome by using indirect heat, slowly cooking chicken over a part of the grill without coals or with a burner turned off. With this method, there’s no chance of flare-ups. But it also results in skin that’s soft and stretchy like a spent rubber band and meat that’s tight.

For tender skin-on chicken you want to eat, you need to grill it directly over coals or propane burners. Starting with moderate heat helps the meat cook all the way to the bone and lets the fat melt slowly so the skin ends up pleasantly thin and a little crackly. Keeping the grill covered also allows the meat to lose its rawness evenly and prevents the fire from raging up. To prepare for any persistent flames, leave a sec-

tion of the grill unheated and move any pieces over it if they light up like candles.

Coating the chicken in a thin sheen of oil encourages the skin to crisp without burning it. Because fire lends its own flavor, the chicken really doesn’t need anything more than salt and pepper, but, if you want a little sweetness, savoriness and spice, you can brush on a simple soy glaze toward the end of cooking instead of marinating beforehand. (Marinated chicken tends to burn more quickly.) As the glaze heats, it caramelizes onto the skin and seeps into the meat. A final swipe of sauce after it’s off the grill gives it a sticky shine for chicken that tastes as good as it smells.

Grilled chicken legs

The best grilled chicken smells like summer. To achieve that charred aroma, you want to crisp the skin while cooking the meat through and keeping it juicy. Setting oil-slicked meat over direct, moderate heat and covering the grill prevents flare-ups, which can burn the skin before the meat loses its rawness. Because fire lends its own flavor, the chicken really doesn’t need anything more than salt and pepper, but

if you want a little sweetness, savoriness and spice, you can brush on the simple soy glaze toward the end of cooking. As it heats, it caramelizes onto the skin and seeps into the meat. A final swipe of sauce over the chicken after it’s off the grill gives it a sticky shine.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings

Total time: 35 minutes, plus grill heating time

Ingredients:

For the glaze (optional):

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon red-pepper flakes

For the chicken:

2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil

5 pounds chicken legs or drumsticks or a combination, patted dry

Salt and black pepper

Preparation:

1. If you’re making the glaze, mix the soy sauce, sugar, vinegar and red-pepper flakes until the sugar dissolves. The glaze can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to a week.

2. Prepare the chicken: Rub the oil all over the chicken, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap any flaps of excess skin around the meat.

3. To cook chicken on a gas grill, heat the grill to medium. When the grill is hot, turn off one burner, and clean and grease the grate. Place the chicken on the grate over the heated burners skin side down. Cover and cook, flipping once, until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. If you’re not glazing the chicken, continue cooking, covered and flipping once, for 5 to 7 minutes longer. If the skin isn’t browning, turn up the heat. If flames flare up over the chicken, move the meat briefly over the unlit burner.

4. If you’re glazing the chicken, brush the meat with the glaze and turn the pieces over. Cover and cook for 2 minutes, then continue brushing, turning and cooking, covered, until you have a spoonful of glaze left and the skin is burnished, 8 to 10 minutes total. A meat thermometer should register 165 degrees.

5. To cook chicken on a charcoal grill, heat charcoal, then spread over two-thirds of the grate when they ash over. When you can hold your hand 5 inches above the coals for 5 to 7 seconds, place the chicken on the grate over the coals skin side down. Cover, with the top vents halfway closed, and cook, flipping once, until golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes. If you’re not glazing the chicken, continue cooking, covered and flipping once, for 5 to 7 minutes longer. If you’re glazing the chicken, brush the meat with the glaze and turn the pieces over. If flames flare up over the chicken, move the meat briefly over the side without coals. Continue brushing and turning uncovered for 8 to 10 minutes, until you have a spoonful of glaze left and the skin is burnished. A meat thermometer should register 165 degrees.

6. Transfer the chicken to a serving platter and immediately brush with the remaining glaze.

A simple soy glaze brushed on at the end of cooking enhances this grilled chicken.

Aussie farmers unleash dinosaur rush as fossil findings rewrite history

By YAN ZHUANG

It took a moment to spot the fragment, initially: fist-size and unnaturally smooth, nestled between shrubs teeming with burrs in an endless expanse of arid plains. But after the first, the others were easier to pick out, gleaming dirty white against the red earth and run through with a honeycomb texture.

Dinosaur bones.

“They’re bloody everywhere,” marveled Matt Herne, curator of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum. About an hour’s drive from the town of Winton, he was inspecting the fossils for the couple who had found them, farmers whose property stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions. (The couple requested anonymity, not wanting the attention that would come if it were known that bones were on their property.)

“It’s spongy bone. Just like a sheared steak bone,” Herne said. “These fragments are telling us that they’ve probably come up from something underneath, and it’s probably quite a large animal.”

For as long as paleontologists have been looking, dinosaur fossils were extraordinarily rare in Australia, and the continent was a missing piece in scientists’ understanding of dinosaurs globally. But it is now experiencing a dinosaur boom, with a flurry of discoveries made over the past two decades that is rewriting the country’s fossil record.

Near-perfect skulls and teeth. A string of new species. Some of the biggest dinosaurs ever recorded. And many of them have begun with a farmer, tripping over an unusuallooking rock, in the sparsely populated plains of outback central west Queensland where sheep outnumber people.

“Before these discoveries started coming out of central western Queensland, Australian dinosaurs were absolutely, extraordinarily rare,” said Matt Lamanna, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. The paleontological community “collectively assumed that dinosaurs were really, really hard to find in Australia,” he added.

That all changed, according to scientists, when David Elliott, a farmer near Winton, came across some fossils on his farm in 1999.

It was not unusual for residents in central west Queensland to stumble upon ancient remains. Elliott, 66, recalled how his father would often come home after a day’s work on the family farm with his pockets bulging with fossils. Once he took over the farm, he also kept one eye on the ground while mustering his sheep, and eventually collected enough fragments to cover a pingpong table.

But locals largely kept their findings to themselves, fearing that publicizing them would bring a flood of scientists, bureaucracy and red tape into their lives.

When Elliott decided to contact a paleontologist two years later, “Everyone said, ‘Oh, mate, they’ll build a na-

tional park and take you over,’” he recalled, adding, “We were very much a test case for the region. No one else was putting their hand up.”

It was lucky he did, as the resulting excavation upended paleontologists’ understanding of how to find dinosaur fossils in Australia.

Earlier paleontologists had assumed that small fragments like those found by Elliott were the last remains of complete fossils that had been weathered down into nearly nothing over the ages, and now had little scientific value.

Elliott thought differently. Having lived and worked on the land all his life, he knew that parts of things deep underground could often be seen on the surface. He believed that the fragments could be markers pointing the way to dinosaur graveyards far below the surface.

When the scientists arrived on his property, he got his excavator and started to dig. His suspicions were confirmed: About 5 feet down, the earth was teeming with chunks of bone.

“That really is the watershed point,” said Scott Hocknull, a paleontologist at the Queensland Museum, who was there. Simply by digging down farther than earlier paleontologists had done, “you transition from not finding anything to finding everything.”

More discoveries followed on Elliott’s property. He set up his own museum in a shed, which would later become a nonprofit called the Australian Age of Dinosaurs. Locals who knew and trusted him started coming to him with their own findings. Paleontologists started using the same method to unearth more bones around the region, including of one of the largest dinosaurs in the world.

A paleo-tourism industry quickly emerged. Paleontologists who once left the country, believing that the only

way to advance their careers was overseas, flocked back. Dinosaur excavations were organized, where volunteers exhumed dozens of bones at a time. And for locals in the region, who had been watching their towns steadily shrink over the decades, wariness began to turn into a sense of possibility.

One Saturday last month, inside a pit about 5 feet deep, volunteers — who pay up to 3,700 Australian dollars (or $2,475) each to attend a one-week dig — were hard at work. Many said they were fulfilling long-held paleontology aspirations that had once seemed impossible in Australia.

Cheryl Condon, 76, said that this dig was the eighth she had attended. She said she had always been interested in the prehistoric past, but never considered it a viable career option when she was young.

“There weren’t dinosaurs in Australia at that point,” she said. Gesturing at the dozen bones being uncovered around her, she added jokingly: “I don’t know where these all came from.”

As Elliott watched the ancient past being painstakingly chipped out of the ground on the same dig, he considered the future.

“You’re thinking about how that’s going to contribute to your museum and how that museum is trying to fit that to and tell the story of Australia,” he said. “And the other thing, for me, is keeping regional Australia alive.”

The sheep industry once thrived in this region, but a commodities crash and relentless droughts have driven many shearers away. The population of Winton has nearly halved to a little over 1,100 in the past 20 years, as people have left to seek better prospects elsewhere.

Tourism could be the answer. Elliott’s museum attracted 60,000 people in 2021.

“It’s gone absolutely crazy,” said Kev Fawcett, the owner of the Winton Hotel. During the pandemic when Australians couldn’t travel overseas, the winter season got so busy that tourists were sleeping in their cars, because the town’s three caravan parks and four motels were full. Fawcett is now renovating the 10 unused rooms in his hotel in anticipation of the next tourist season.

Elliott wants to expand into Australia’s leading natural history museum — something that will attract international visitors and that can benefit not only Winton but the other small towns in regional Queensland.

“Every town has a got a little museum in it, and no one’s coming from around the world to see that,” he said. “You need to have a major destination for people.”

For Hocknull, the Queensland Museum paleontologist, the discoveries they had made so far had only scratched

“The exciting part for me is not that the boom has happened, but what will be the outcome of all of this in the next 20 to 40 years,” he said. “The dinosaurs will continue to be found. Who knows what we’ve got?”

the surface.

A boy with a statue of a dinosaur named Banjo (after the Australian bush poet Banjo Patterson) at the Australia Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Winton, Australia, May 14, 2023. A new understanding of how to search for ancient remains has reinvigorated Australia’s Central West region of Queensland, and tourists are flocking to its paleontological digs.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN 607-609 CONDADO ST., LLC.

Demandante V. LA SOCIEDAD INTERNACIONAL DE INVESTIGADORES PROFESIONALES, INC.

Demandado

Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV01381.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA.

A: LOS CODEMANDADOS DE EPÍGRAFE Y AL PÚBLICO EN GENERAL:

El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente anuncia y hace constar que en cumplimiento de una Sentencia en Rebeldía dictada en el caso de epígrafe el 13 de septiembre de 2022, notificada el 14 de septiembre de 2022 y publicada el 23 de septiembre de 2022, una Orden de Ejecución de Embargo emitida el 15 de marzo de 2023 y un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Embargo emitido el día 17 de marzo de 2023, que le ha sido dirigido por la Secretaria del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, procederá a vender en subasta, y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, y/o giro postal, dinero en efectivo, cheque de gerente o cheque certificado a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal, o letra bancaria, con similar garantía de todo título, derecho o interés de los demandados de epígrafe sobre el inmueble que adelante se describe. Se anuncia por la presente que la subasta habrá de celebrarse el día 11 DE JULIO DE 2023; A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en mi oficina localizada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan, sobre el inmueble que se describe a continuación:

URBANA: Propiedad Horizontal: Oficina #505. Colinda por el OESTE, en 28’ 6”, con pared interior que lo separa de la oficina #504; por el ESTE, en igual medida, con pared interior que lo separa de la oficina #506; por el NORTE, en 15’ 5”, con pared que lo separa de parte de la oficina #504 y con el pasillo común; y por el SUR, en igual medida, con la pared exterior del edificio hacia su colindancia con la calle denominada “Rolan”. Comprende un área de 443 pies cuadrados, aproximadamente, y tiene su entrada y salida hacia el Norte, por el pasillo común con el cual colinda por ese lado. La oficina descrita

se separa del quinto piso del edificio denominado Condominio Condado. Le corresponde una participación en los elementos comunes equivalente a un porcentaje del 0.017%.

FINCA NÚMERO: 4921, inscrita al folio 60 del tomo 153 de Santurce Sur, Registro de la Propiedad, Sede Metropolitana, sección primera de San Juan. Dirección física: 609 Condado St., Oficina 505, San Juan PR 00907. La subasta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer al demandante, total o parcialmente, según sea el caso, de la referida sentencia que fue dictada por la siguiente suma: $9,573.72 por concepto de cuotas de mantenimiento vencidas y no pagadas; más la suma de $4,189.28 por concepto de intereses, más la suma de $947.99 por concepto de penalidad, para un total de $14,710.99, más las costas, gastos y una suma razonable por honorarios de abogado. Esta subasta no tiene fijación de tipo mínimo por tratarse de una ejecución de sentencia por embargo. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LAS PARTES INTERESADAS y del público en general, se advierte que los autos de este caso y demás instancias están disponibles para ser inspeccionadas en la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de San Juan, durante las horas laborables. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad del inmueble y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito del ejecutante, incluyendo el gravamen por las contribuciones sobre la propiedad inmueble adeudadas, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda responsable de los mismos sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. En testimonio de lo cual, expido el presente aviso, el cual firmo y sello, hoy 31 de mayo de 2023, en San Juan, Puerto Rico. PEDRO HIEYE GONZÁLEZ, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE SAN JUAN.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL

GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRI-

BUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTAN-

CIA SALA DE FAJARDO

ORIENTAL BANK

Parte Demandante V.

JOSÉ VÉLEZ RODRÍGUEZ

Parte Demandada

Civil Núm.: NSCI201500767.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y

EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA.

ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Fajardo, hago saber a la parte demandada JOSÉ VÉLEZ RODRÍGUEZ, y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL; que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el 16 de septiembre de 2022, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta por el precio mínimo de $201,150.00 y al mejor postor, pagadero en efectivo, cheque de gerente o giro postal, a nombre del alguacil del tribunal, la propiedad que se describe a continuación [APT 2001 COND.

COSTA BONITA, CULEBRA, PR 00775]: URBANA: Horizontal Property: Residential Unit 2001 of Cluster 20, which forms part of The Costa Bonita Beach Resort Condominium Regime, located at Los Frailes Ward, Culebra, Puerto Rico. Squared shape one story unit, with a total construction area of 534.11 square feet, equivalent to 49.62 square meters. This unit shares part of the ground floor of Cluster 20 with Residential Unit 2002. The main entrance is located on the side of the unit leading to the foyer which is a limited common element of Cluster 20. Its boundaries are: by the North, with common wall that separates it from residential unit 2002 and with the foyer which is an interior limited common element; by the South, with exterior common areas of the condominium; by the West, with exterior common areas of the condominium; and by the East, with exterior common areas of the condominium.

Residential unit 2001 contains, a living/sleeping area, a kitchenette, a bathroom, a closet, an owner’s closet, an air conditioning closet and a covered balcony area. This unit has the exclusive use and enjoyment of the following limited common elements of The Costa Bonita Beach Resort Condominium: the foyer and access stairways of Cluster 20 which give access to the units forming part of said cluster. The percentage share of this unit in and to the general common elements is 0.4494%.

The percentage share of this unit in and to the limited common elements 25%. Finca 1875 de Culebra, inscrita al sistema Karibe, Registro de la Propiedad de Fajardo. La finca antes descrita se encuentra afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: (i) Hipoteca constituida par José Vélez Rodríguez t/c/c José

A. Vélez Rodríguez t/c/c José

Monday, June 19, 2023 22

Angel Vélez Rodríguez, en garantía de un pagaré, a favor de Doral Bank, o a su orden, par $201,150.00, al 5.95%, vencedero el 1 de octubre de 2035, según Esc. #46, en San Juan, a 30 de septiembre de 2005, ante Víctor J. Girona González, inscrita al Sistema Karibe de Culebra, finca #1875, inscripción 2da. (ii) Demanda de fecha 27 de octubre de 2015, radicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Fajardo, en el caso civil #NSC2015-00767, por concepto de Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca, seguido por Scotiabank de Puerto Rico versus José Vélez Rodríguez, se solicita el pago de la hipoteca que resulta de la inscripción 2da., reducida a la suma de $173,035.77, anotado al Sistema Karibe, el 18 de abril de 2022, anotación A. La hipoteca objeto de esta ejecución es la que ha quedado descrita en el inciso (i). Será celebrada la subasta para con el importe de la misma satisfacer la sentencia dictada el 27 de mayo de 2022 por este Tribunal, a favor de la parte demandante por la suma $173,035.77 de principal, más intereses al 5.95% que continuarán acumulándose hasta el saldo total, más la suma de dinero para primas de seguro y/o contribuciones, inspecciones, más recargos por demora, y la cantidad estipulada de $20,115.00 de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. La PRIMERA SUBASTA será celebrada el día 6 DE JULIO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina del Alguacil, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la cantidad de $201,150.00, sin admitirse oferta inferior. De no haber remate ni adjudicación, celebraré SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 13 DE JULIO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la que servirá como tipo mínimo, dos terceras (2/3) partes del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $134,100.00.

Si no hubiese remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, celebraré TERCERA SUBASTA el día 20 DE JULIO DE 2023, A LAS 10:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar en la que regirá como tipo mínimo, la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $100,575.00.

El Alguacil que suscribe hizo constar que toda licitación deberá hacerse para pagar su importe en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, de acuerdo con la Ley y de acuerdo con lo anunciado en este Aviso de Subasta. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto

en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables. Se entiende que todo licitador que comparezca a la subasta señalada en este caso acepta como bastante la titulación que da base a la misma. Se entiende que cualquier carga y/o gravamen anterior y/o preferente, si la hubiere al crédito que da base a esta ejecución continuará subsistente, entendiéndose, además, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción cualquier parte del remanente del precio de licitación. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Vendida o adjudicada la finca o derecho hipotecado y consignado el precio correspondiente, en esa misma fecha o fecha posterior, el alguacil que celebró la subasta procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura pública de traspaso en representación del dueño o titular de los bienes hipotecados, ante el notario que elija el adjudicatario o comprador, quien deberá abonar el importe de tal escritura. El alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la confirmación de la venta o adjudicación. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LOS LICITADORES Y DEL PUBLICO EN GENERAL y para su publicación de acuerdo con la Ley, expido el presente Edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal. En Fajardo, Puerto Rico, hoy 7 de febrero de 2023. SANDRALIZ MARTÍNEZ TORRES, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #737, ALGUACIL DEL

TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE FAJARDO. JORGE A. ORTIZ ESTRADA, ALGUACIL REGIONAL INTERINO.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN MUNICIPIO DE TOA ALTA REPRESENTADO POR SU HONORABLE ALCALDE CLEMENTE AGOSTO LUGARDO Peticionario Vs. ADQUISICIÓN DEL PREDIO CON UNA CABIDA DE: 457.42 M.C. UBICADO EN EL BARRIO CONTORNO DE TOA ALTA; AÍDA JIMÉNEZ

LORENZO; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES

TOA ALTA, JOHN Y JANE DOE

Parte con Interés Civil Núm.: BY2023CV00455.

Sala: 701. Sobre: EXPROPIACIÓN FORZOSA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: JOHN Y JANE DOE, A TODA PERSONA IGNORADA, A QUIENES PUEDA PERJUDICAR LO SOLICITADO, LOS QUE

TENGAN CUALQUIER DERECHO REAL SOBRE LA FINCA OBJETO DE ESTE PROCEDIMIENTO. La parte peticionaria ha radicado en este Tribunal una Solicitud para que se declare a su favor, el título mediante el proceso de expropiación de la siguiente finca: “Número de Catastro: 084-051-054-45-000.

Urbana: BARRIO CONTORNO de Toa Alta. Solar: 1. Cabida:

457.42 Metros Cuadrados. Linderos: Norte, con la Sucesión de Adrián Chevre en distancia de 18.94 metros. Sur, con la calle número 4 dedicada a uso público en un largo de cuerda de 1.60 metros. Este, con el solar del señor José Ramírez y un remanente de la finca principal en distancia de 31.95 metros.

Oeste, con el solar número 2, en distancia de 2805 metros. Es segregación de la finca

6730 inscrito al folio 11 de tomo

161 de Toa Alta. Consta inscrita al Folio 1, del Tomo 271 de Toa Alta, Finca 6,730. Representa a la parte peticionaria, la abogada cuyo nombre, dirección y

The San Juan Daily Star

teléfono es el siguiente: ISAMAR CORREA RUIZ (RUA 16886)

Edificio San Juan Towers

Ave. Ponce de León 1250 - Suite 600 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00907

Teléfono: (787) 370-1700

Móvil: (787) 452-0188

Email: icorrea.correapartners@gmail.com

Habiéndose dictado Orden por el Honorable Tribunal para que la solicitud de la peticionaria sea publicada por tres (3) veces en el término de veinte (20) días en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, comparezcan a alegar sus derechos dentro de los veinte (20) días de la última publicación el edicto, se les apercibe que si no comparecieren a contestar dicha petición dentro del término establecido, se dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado, sin más citarle ni oírle. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a 08 de mayo de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MARÍA E. COLLAZO

FEBUS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS SALA SUPERIOR ORIENTAL BANK COMO AGENTE DE SERVICIO DE THE MONEY HOUSE, INC.

Demandante Vs. LA SUCESION DE LUIS ANGEL GARCIA PEREZ COMPUESTA

POR ZULEIKA GARCIA; FULANO Y FULANA DE TAL COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)

Demandados

Civil Núm.: CG2023CV00087.

Sala: 705. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (VÍA ORDINARIA). EDICTO DE SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente CERTIFICA, ANUNCIA y hace CONSTAR: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que le ha sido dirigido al Alguacil que suscribe por la Secretaría del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS, SALA SUPERIOR, en el caso de epígrafe procederá a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor en efectivo, cheque certificado en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América el día 6

DE JULIO DE 2023, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en su oficina sita en el local que ocupa en el edificio del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS. SALA SUPERIOR, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble de su propiedad que ubica en LOT 40 SR 792 KM 2.9, BARRIO SONADORA, AGUAS BUENAS, PUERTO RICO 00703 y que se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Parcela de terreno radicada en el Barrio Sonadora de Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, identificada con el número 40 en el Plano de Inscripción de la lotificación rural con una cabida superficial de 1807.542 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en distancia de 96.681 metros, con la parcela número 41; por el SUR, en una distancia de 95.00 metros, con la parcela número 39; por el ESTE, en una distancia de 15.00 metros, con una servidumbre de acceso al área de parque; y por el OESTE, en dos distancias de 13.038 metros, y 9.689 metros con la Calle D. La propiedad antes relacionada consta inscrita al Folio 33 del Tomo 204 de Aguas Buenes, finca número 9,682, en el Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección Segunda. El tipo mínimo para la primera subasta del inmueble antes relacionado, será el dispuesto en la Escritura de Hipoteca, es decir la suma de $113,298.00. Si no hubiere remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta del inmueble mencionado, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA en las oficinas del Alguacil que suscribe el día 13 DE JULIO DE 2023, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. En la segunda subasta que se celebre servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes (2/3) del precio pactado en la primera subasta, o sea la suma de $75,532.00. Si tampoco hubiere remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA en las oficinas del Alguacil que suscribe el día 20 DE JULIO DE 2023, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. Para la tercera subasta servirá de tipo mínimo la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado para el caso de ejecución, o sea, la suma de $56,649.00. La hipoteca a ejecutarse en el caso de epígrafe fue constituida mediante la escritura número 191 otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 25 de octubre de 2019, ante el Notario Pedro J. Díaz García, la cual consta inscrita al Tomo Karibe de Aguas Buenas, finca número 9,682, inscripción 10ma., en el Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección Segunda. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer

Y JUANA DEL PUEBLO Y CUALQUIERA PERSONA DESCONOCIDA CON POSIBLE INTERÉS EN LA OBLIGACIÓN CUYA CANCELACIÓN POR DECRETO JUDICIAL SE SOLICITA

Demandado(a)

Civil: MZ2022CV01489. Sala: 307. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y JUANA DEL PUEBLO Y CUALQUIERA PERSONA DESCONOCIDA CON POSIBLE INTERÉS EN LA OBLIGACIÓN CUYA CANCELACIÓN POR

DECRETO JUDICIAL SE SOLICITA.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)

EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 1 de junio de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 9 de junio de 2023. En Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, el 9 de junio de 2023. LCDA. NORMA

G. SANTANA IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA. REBECA MEDINA

FIGUEROA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN

JUAN

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Parte Demandante Vs. NANCY ELIZABETH

GUARDARRAMA

RIVERA t/c/c NANCY

E. GUARDARRAMA

RIVERA t/c/c NANCY

GUARDARRAMA

RIVERA; SENAIDA FELIZ DELGADO

Parte Demandada

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A La Parte Demandada: NANCY ELIZABETH GUARDARRAMA

RIVERA T/C/C NANCY

E. GUARDARRAMA

RIVERA T/C/C NANCY

GUARDARRAMA RIVERA

Y SENAIDA FELIZ

DELGADO A SU ÚLTIMA DIRECCIÓN CONOCIDA:

COND. JARDINES DE BERWIND II, 1500 AVE

LOS ROMEROS APT

D-307, SAN JUAN, PR 00926-7012.

Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre ejecución de hipoteca por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que se adeuda las siguientes cantidades: $9,577.97 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 6% anual desde el 1 de octubre de 2022 hasta su completo pago, más $17.28 de recargos acumulados, los cuales continuarán en aumento hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más la cantidad estipulada de $2,400.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo, incluyendo pero sin limitarse a gastos de mantenimiento, inspecciones y otros adelantos “corporate advances”. La propiedad que garantiza hipotecariamente el préstamo es la siguiente: URBAN: Apartamento número D-307. Jardines De Berwind: Residential apartment of irregular rectangular shape located at the third floor in building D of Jardines de Berwind II Condominium, which is in turn located at kilometer four point four (4.4) of the 65th Infantry Highway at the Río Piedras Ward of the Municipality of San Juan, which property is located in the Southern portion of the Berwind Country Club Main Farm, property of the Urban Renewal and Housing Corporation. The apartment has a total private area of 1049.37 square feet, being its lineal measurements 31’ by 29’ 11” inches on one side, 9’ 2” by 11’ 7” on another, and 4’ 7” by 3’ 5” on the other side, comprising the total area. This family unit consists mainly of the following: a combined living-dining area, 4 bedrooms with closets, a balcony facing North, one bathroom with wash basin, water closet and bathtub, an interior hall with linen closet, a laundry area and a kitchen with sin, electric range, oven, refrigerator and hot water heater. Its boundaries are as follows: by the NOR-

TH, with the exterior yard; by the SOUTH, with the common corridor; by the WEST, with apartment D-306; and by the EAST, with the common interior corridor. Le corresponde a este apartamento un porcentaje en los elementos comunes de 0.0046307%. Inscrita al folio 7 del tomo 503 de Sabana Llana, Finca 20033. Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección V. La hipoteca consta inscrita al folio 167 del tomo 1000 de Sabana Llana, Finca 20033. Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección V. Inscripción 9na. La demandante es la tenedora por endoso, por valor recibido y de buena fe del referido pagaré objeto de la presente acción. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le advierte que si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la Parte Demandante, Lcda. Belma Alonso García, cuya dirección es: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo, PR 00970-3922, Teléfono y Fax: (787)789-1826, (787)708-0566, correo electrónico oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy, 7 de junio de 2023, en San Juan, Puerto Rico. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. BRENDA HERNÁNDEZ ZAVALA, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA DE HUMACAO

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Parte Demandante Vs. PABLO ROMAN

CARRASQUILLO

Parte Demandada

Civil Núm.: HU2022CV00285.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPO-

TECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA

Y COBRO DE DINERO. ANUNCIO DE SUBASTA. El suscribiente, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Puerto Rico, Sala de Humacao, a los demandados de epígrafe y al público en general hace saber que los autos y documentos del caso de epígrafe estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas labora-

bles y que venderá en pública subasta al mejor postor, en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América en efectivo, cheque certificado, o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, en mi oficina en el Centro Judicial de Humacao, Humacao, Puerto Rico, el derecho que tenga la parte demandada en el inmueble que se relaciona más adelante para pagar la SENTENCIA por $46,904.07, de balance principal, los intereses adeudados sobre dicho principal y computados al 6 1/8% anual hasta su total pago y completo pago; cargos por demora devengados, más la suma de $6,000.00 estipulada para honorarios de abogado, pactada en la escritura de hipoteca; y cuales quiera otras sumas que por cualesquiera concepto legal se devenguen hasta el día de la subasta. La propiedad a venderse en pública subasta se describe como sigue: RUSTICA: Solar marcado con el número 17 en el plano de parcelación de la comunidad rural Pasto Seco del barrio El Río del término municipal de Las Piedras, con una cabida superficial de 0.891 cuerdas, equivalentes a 350.00 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con solar 16; por el SUR, con solar 18; por el ESTE, con solar 12 y por el OESTE, con calle uno. Inscrita al folio doscientos treinta y cinco (235) del tomo ciento noventa y ocho (198) de Las Piedras, finca numero diez mil cuatrocientos ochenta y seis (10486), Registro de la Propiedad de Humacao. Dirección Física: 17 Seco Community, Las Piedras, PR 00771. La PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a cabo el día 3 DE AGOSTO DE 203, A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA, y servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la suma de $60,000.00 sin admitirse oferta inferior. En el caso de que el inmueble a ser subastado no fuera adjudicado en la primera subasta, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 10 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA, y el precio mínimo para esta segunda subasta será el de dos terceras partes del precio mínimo establecido para la primera subasta, o a sea la suma de $40,000.00. Si tampoco hubiera remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 17 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA, el tipo mínimo para esta tercera subasta será la mitad del precio establecido para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $30,000.00. El mejor postor deberá pagar el importe de su oferta en efecto, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se dará por terminado el procedimiento, pudiendo adjudicarse el inmueble al acree-

Monday, June 19, 2023

dor hipotecario dentro de los diez días siguientes a la fecha de la última subasta, si así lo estimase conveniente, por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada conforme a la sentencia, si ésta fuera igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta y abonándose dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta fuera mayor. Se avisa a cualquier licitador que la propiedad queda sujeta al gravamen del Estado Libre Asociado y CRIM sobre la propiedad inmueble por contribuciones adeudadas y que el pago de dichas contribuciones es la responsabilidad del licitador. Que se entenderá por todo licitador acepte como suficiente la titulación y que los cargos y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes en entendiéndose que el rematador los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse su extinción al precio rematante. Todos los nombres de los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o de los acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, siempre que surgen de la certificación registral, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Y para conocimiento de licitadores, del público en general y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general diaria en Puerto Rico y en los sitios públicos de acuerdo a las disposiciones de la Regla 51.7 de las de Procedimiento Civil, así como para la publicación en un periódico de circulación general diaria y en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas con antelación a la fecha de la primera subasta y por lo menos una vez por semana. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento indicado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante las horas laborables. (Art. 102 (1) de la Ley núm. 210-2015). Expedido el presente en Humacao, Puerto Rico a 7 de junio de 2023. JOSÉ LUIS RODRÍGUEZ HERNÁNDEZ, ALGUACIL REGIONAL INTERINO, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE HUMACAO.

WILNELIA RIVERA DELGADO, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR #249.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR 903

PUERTO RICO

PROPERTIES SOLUTIONS, LLC.

Demandante Vs. ALVIN RENE ASENCIO NEGRON

Demandado Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV03516.

Sobre: DESAHUCIO EN PRECARIO (DESAHUCIO SUMARIO). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: ALVIN RENE ASENCIO NEGRON. Por medio del presente edicto se les notifica de la radicación de una Demanda de Desahucio en Precario sometida en relación con cierta propiedad sita en la Urbanización Montecarlo, 1295 Bloque H-24, San Juan, Puerto Rico. La parte demandante solicita del Honorable Tribunal que declare Con Lugar la demanda y en su consecuencia ordene al Secretario del Tribunal que expida Orden y Mandamiento correspondiente para lograr el desalojo de la propiedad. POR EL PRESENTE EDICTO se le emplaza para que presente al Tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. or salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Copia de dicha contestación debe remitirse al abogado del demandante, Lcdo. Ricardo J. Cacho Rodríguez, 54 Calle Resolución, Suite 303 San Juan, PR 00920 Te!: (787) 722-2242; Fax: (787) 722-2242 email cachor@microjuris.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días siguientes a la fecha de publicación de este Edicto. EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA Y SELLO DEL TRIBUNAL, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy 8 de junio de 2023. GRI-

SELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. MICHELLE RIVERA RÍOS, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL

GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAROLINA ORIENTAL BANK

Demandante V. JOSÉ ANTONIO ARCHEVAL RODRÍGUEZ

Demandado

Civil Núm.: CA2023CV00470. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. EDICTO.

A: JOSÉ ANTONIO ARCHEVAL RODRÍGUEZ. COND. SABANA ABAJO

APARTMENTS, 141 EDIF

1, CAROLINA, PR 00982; COND. SABANA ABAJO

APARTMENTS, APT. 141, EDIF 1 385 CARR 190, CAROLINA, PR 00982. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Representa a la parte demandante el Lcdo. Javier Montalvo Cintrón, Delgado Fernández, LLC, PO Box 11750, Fernández Juncos Station, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00910-1750. Tel. [787] 274-1414. DADA en Carolina, Puerto Rico, a 07 de junio de 2023. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. KEILA GARCÍA SOLÍS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLINA

JUNTA DE RETIRO DEL GOBIERNO DE PUERTO RICO ANTES

SISTEMA DE RETIRO DE LOS EMPLEADOS DEL GOBIERNO, SISTEMA DE RETIRO DE LA JUDICATURA Y SISTEMA DE RETIRO DE LOS MAESTROS, Demandante V. RAFAEL ANDINO ANDINO, REGINA MANGUAL GAUTIER Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS Demandado Civil Núm.: CA2023CV00575. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. A: RAFAEL ANDINO ANDINO, REGINA MANGUA! GAUTIER Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS. DIRECCIÓN RESIDENCIAL Y POSTAL:

URB. VISTAMAR, B-339 AVE. PONTEZUELA, CAROLINA, PR, 00983. Por el presente edicto se le notifica que se ha radicado una demanda en este Tribunal, en la cual, Rafael Andino Andino, Regina Mangual Gautier y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por ambos, es parte demandada en el caso de epígrafe. Se le requiere que en el término de treinta (30) días, contados a partir de la publicación de este edicto, usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal, y notificarle copia a la representación legal de la parte demandante a la siguiente dirección:

GUILLERMO A. SOMOZA COLOMBANI

TSPR. RUA 10396 PO Box 366603

San Juan PR 00936-6603

Tel. (787) 919-0073

Email: billysomoza@yahoo.com

MARCOS MORALES SBERT

TSPR. RUA 18706

Edif. Asociación de Maestros 452 Ponce de Leon, Suite 515 San Juan, PR, 00918

Tel. (787) 340-2966

Email: mgm@moralessbert.com

Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la deman-

da, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI

FIRMA Y SELLO DEL TRIBUNAL, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy 07 de junio de 2023. LCDA.

KANELLY M. ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA GENERAL. MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA

TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO

CORPORACION ISLA

BUS SERVICE INC.

REPRESENTADA POR

MARILÚ ACEVEDO MILLET

Demandante V.

SUCN. RAMON DEL CARMEN OLMO CUEVAS

T/C/P RAMON DEL CARMEN OLMO T/C/P

RAMON DEL C. OLMO

CUEVAS Y OTROS

Demandado(a)

Civil Núm.: AR2023CV00247.

404. Sobre: SENTENCIA DECLARATORIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR

EDICTO.

A: SUCESION DE RAMON

DEL CARMEN OLMO

CUEVAS, TAMBIÉN

CONOCIDO POR RAMÓN

DEL CARMEN OLMO Y RAMÓN DEL C. OLMO

CUEVAS COMPUESTA

POR JOSÉ RAMÓN OLMO

OLMO, RAID MANUEL

OLMO OLMO, TAMBIÉN

CONOCIDO POR RAÜL M.

OLMO OLMO, Y LA VIUDA

ELBA MARINA OLMO

ALVAREZ, TAMBIÉN

CONOCIDA POR ELBA M.

OLMO ALVAREZ.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)

EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 8 de junio de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este

edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 9 de junio de 2023. En ARECIBO, Puerto Rico, el 9 de junio de 2023. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA. EIMMY FELICIANO TORRES, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PREMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAROLINA JUAN ANTONIO GARCÍA OCASIO

Peticionario EX PARTE

Civil Núm.: CN2023CV00177.

Sobre: EXPDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: PERSONAS IGNORADAS A QUIENES PUEDA PERJUDICAR LA INSCRIPCIÓN SOLITADA Y A LOS QUE TENGAN EN DICHOS BIENES CUALQUIER DERECHO REAL O DESEAN OPONERSE.

Por la presente se le notifica a usted que se ha presentado ante éste Tribunal el expediente de dominio arriba mencionado, con el fin de justificar e inscribir a favor del peticionario, el dominio que tienen sobre la siguiente finca la cual no consta inscrita en el Registro de la Propiedad: “RÚSTICA: Predio de terreno radicado en el Barrio Hato Puerco, hoy Palma Sola del término municipal de Canóvanas, Puerto Rico, compuesto de uno punto dos mil setecientos cuatro (1.2704) cuerdas, equivalentes a cuatro mil novecientos noventa y dos punto nueve mil ochocientos treinta y siete (4,992.9837) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el Norte, con Arturo Rodríguez y Nahiara C. Frank Quintana; por el Sur, con Ramal de la Carretera PR957; por el Este, con Nahiara C. Frank Quintana; y por el Oeste, con Celia García y Arturo Rodríguez” El abogado del peticionario es: Lcdo. Felix Oscar Rivera Borges, RUA 10781, PO Box 178, Mayagüez, PR 006810178; Tel: 787-873-5660; felixriveraborges@yahoo.com. Y SE

NOTIFICA, que este Tribunal ha ordenado que se publique la petición del peticionario por tres (3) veces dentro del término de veinte (20) días en un periódico de circulación general para que los que tengan algún derecho real sobre el inmueble descrito, las personas ignoradas a quienes pueda perjudicar la inscripción y en general, a todos los que deseen oponerse, puedan efectuarlos dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la última publicación del presente edicto. Se le aper-

cibe que de no comparecer los interesados y/o partes citadas, en su defecto los organismos públicos afectados en el término improrrogable de veinte (20) días a constar de la última publicación del edicto, el Tribunal podrá conceder el remedio solicitado por la parte peticionaria, sin más citarle ni oírle. POR ORDEN DEL HONORABLE Thainie Reyes Ramírez, Juez Superior de este Tribunal expido la presente en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy 16 de mayo de 2023. LIC. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA DEL TRIBUNAL SUPERIOR. RUTH M. COLÓN LUCIANO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO

GOBIERNO MUNICIPAL AUTÓNOMO DE FAJARDO, REPRESENTADO POR SU ALCALDE, JOSÉ A. MELÉNDEZ MÉNDEZ

Demandante V. ADQUISICIÓN DE FINCA 3,125 DE LA CALLE CHIQUITA, DEL TÉRMINO MUNICIPAL DE FAJARDO; MARÍA LUISA CALDERÓN, ET ALS

Demandado(a)

Civil: FA2022CV00766. Sobre: EXPROPIACIÓN FORZOSA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: MARÍA LUISA CALDERÓN, TEODOMINA

DÍAZ Y JULIO LUIS

ROSARIO DÍAZ Y/O

CUALQUIER PERSONA CON ALGÚN POSIBLE INTERÉS; 208 CALLE GUMERSINDO, FAJARDO, PR 00738-4748.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)

EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 12 de junio de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta

notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 14 de junio de 2023. En Fajardo, Puerto Rico, el 14 de junio de 2023. WANDA I. SEGUÍ REYES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. IVELISSE SERRANO GARCÍA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA MUNICIPAL SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN ASOCIACIÓN DE PROPIETARIOS DE SAN RAFAEL ESTATES, INC.

Demandante V. ORLANDO COLÓN SERRANO Y LA SUCESIÓN DE: MARÍA DEL CARMEN ROMÁN CRÚZ COMPUESTA POR: ORLANDO J. COLON ROMAN Y MISAEL COLÓN ROMÁN

Demandados

Civil Núm.: BY2022CV04819.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO (R. 60). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL PUEBLO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: ORLANDO COLÓN SERRANO Y MISAEL COLÓN ROMÁN.

Por la presente se le notifica que la parte demandante ha presentado ante este Tribunal Demanda contra usted(es), solicitando la concesión del siguiente remedio: Demanda de COBRO DE DINERO, por concepto de cuotas de mantenimientos vencidas y no pagadas por la suma de $7,420.31 al16 de septiembre de 2022. Representa a la parte demandante el abogado cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato:

LCDO. MELVYN E. FONTAN LOZADA Colegiado Núm.: 15768, RUA: 14519 PO Box 124, Bayamón, PR 00960-0124 Tel. 787-340-6604 Fax 787-261-9168

E-mail: melfonloza@live.com, melvynfontan@gmail.com

Se le apercibe que si no compareciera usted a contestar dicha demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de haber sido diligenciado este Emplazamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del tribunal. Si usted deje de presentar su alegación responsiva

dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a 05 de junio de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. KATHERINE SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN REVERSE MORTGAGE SOLUTIONS, INC.

Demandante V. LA SUCESIÓN DE AIDA OQUENDO BARBOSA, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO AIDA OQUENDO BARBOSA Y COMO AIDA LUZ OQUENDO BARBOSA COMPUESTA POR GAMALIER ALVAREZ OQUENDO, ANA RUTH ALVAREZ OQUENDO, EDWIN ALVAREZ OQUENDO, FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA Demandados Civil Núm.: Do2022CV00152.

702. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE INTERPELACIÓN. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S.

A: SUCESIÓN DE AIDA OQUENDO BARBOSA, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO AIDA OQUENDO BARBOSA Y COMO AIDA LUZ OQUENDO BARBOSA COMPUESTA

POR GAMALIER

ALVAREZ OQUENDO, ANA RUTH ALVAREZ OQUENDO, EDWIN ALVAREZ OQUENDO, FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN.

El Artículo 1578 del Código Civil de 2020. dispone: “Transcurridos treinta (30) días desde que se haya producido la delación, cualquier persona interesada puede solicitar al tribunal que le señale al lla-

mado un plazo, para que manifieste si acepta la herencia o si la repudia. Este plazo no excederá de treinta (30) días. El tribunal apercibirá al llamado de que, si transcurrido el plazo señalado no ha manifestado su voluntad de aceptar la herencia o de repudiarla, se dará por aceptada.” Por la presente el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, conforme al Art. 1578, supra, y el caso Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria vs. Latinoamericana de Exportación, lnc., 164 DPR 689 (2005), les ordena que el término de treinta (30) días, hagan declaración aceptado o repudiando la herencia de la causante, AIDA OQUENDO BARBOSA, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO AIDA OQUENDO BARBOSA Y COMO AIDA LUZ OQUENDO BARBOSA. Se les apercibe a los herederos antes mencionados que de no expresarse dentro de ese término de treinta (30) días en torno a la aceptación o repudiación de herencia, la misma se tendrá por aceptada. Los abogados de la parte demandante son: Lcdo. Andrés Sáez Marrero T.S.P.R. Núm. 18074 TROMBERG, MORRIS & POULIN, LLC

1515 South Federal Highway, Suite 100 Boca Raton, FL 33432

Tel. 877-338-4101 / Fax: 561-338-4077 prservice@tmppllc.com / asaez@tmppllc.com

Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, hoy 05 de junio de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. MIRCIENID GONZÁLEZ TORRES, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN

JESSICA

CARLO HERNANDEZ Demandante V. MANUEL ANTOMATTEY BURGOS Demandado(a)

Civil: .BY2023RF00439. 3001.

Sobre: DIVORCIO, RUPTURA IRREPARABLE. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: MANUEL ANTOMATTEY BURGOS. (Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 8 de junio de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes

a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 8 de junio de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 8 de junio de 2023. Lcda. Laura I. Santa Sánchez, Secretaria. Yvette Ríos Vázquez, Secretaria Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN

CASCADE FUNDING

MORTGAGE TRUST AB1

Demandante V. SUCESIÓN DE ABRAHAM

DÍAZ PÉREZ, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDO COMO

ABRAHAN DÍAZ PÉREZ, ABRAHAM DÍAZ Y COMO ABRAHAN DÍAZ, COMPUESTA POR JOSÉ

LUIS DÍAZ RESTO, ABRAHAM DÍAZ RESTO, FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; Y SUCESIÓN DE AURORA RESTO MORALES, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO AURORA RESTO, COMPUESTA POR JOSÉ LUIS DÍAZ RESTO, ABRAHAM DÍAZ RESTO, MENGANO DE TAL Y MENGANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES

Demandados

Civil Núm.: BY2023CV00867.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE INTERPELACIÓN. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S. S. A: LA SUCESIÓN DE ABRAHAM DÍAZ PÉREZ, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDO COMO ABRAHAN DÍAZ PÉREZ, ABRAHAM DÍAZ

Y COMO ABRAHAN DÍAZ, COMPUESTA POR JOSÉ LUIS DÍAZ RESTO, ABRAHAM DÍAZ RESTO, FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; Y SUCESIÓN DE AURORA RESTO MORALES, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDA COMO AURORA RESTO, COMPUESTA POR JOSÉ LUIS DÍAZ RESTO, ABRAHAM DÍAZ RESTO, MENGANO DE TAL Y MENGANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN. El Artículo I 578 del Código Civil de 2020, dispone: “Transcurridos treinta (30) días desde que se haya producido la delación, cualquier persona interesada puede solicitar al tribunal que le señale al llamado un plazo, para que manifieste si acepta la herencia o si la repudia. Este plazo no excederá de treinta (30) días. El tribunal apercibirá al llamado de que, si transcurrido el plazo señalado no ha manifestado su voluntad de aceptar la herencia o de repudiarla, se dará por aceptada.”

Por la presente el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, conforme al Art. 1578, supra, y el caso Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria vs. Latinoamericana de Exportación, Inc., 164 DPR 689 (2005), les ordena que el término de treinta (30) días, hagan declaración aceptado o repudiando la herencia de los causantes, ABRAHAM DÍAZ PÉREZ, también conocido como ABRAHAN DÍAZ PÉREZ, ABRAHAM DÍAZ y como ABRAHAN DÍAZ y AURORA RESTO MORALES, también conocida como AURORA RESTO. Se les apercibe a los herederos antes mencionados que de no expresarse dentro de ese término de treinta (30) días en torno a la aceptación o repudiación de herencia, la misma se tendrá por aceptada.

Los abogados de la parte demandante son:

Lcdo. Andrés Sáez Marrero

T.S.P.R. Núm. 18074 TROMBERG, MORRIS & POULIN, LLC

1515 South Federal Highway, Suite 100

Boca Raton, FL 33432

Tel. 877-338-4101 / Fax: 561-3384077 prservice@tmppllc.com / asaez@ tmppllc.com

Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, hoy 06 de junio de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. CARMEN M. PINTADO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

Monday, June 19, 2023 27

Ja Morant’s gun videos clash with NBA’s gun safety advocacy

By SOPAN DEB and TANIA GANGULI

As the United States grapples with the very American problem of rampant gun violence, the issue of gun safety has touched the NBA through one of its brightest young stars, Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies, who was suspended for 25 games Friday after recklessly waving a gun around in a social media video for a second time.

Morant, 23, is a small but electrifying point guard with one of the most popular jerseys in the NBA and 12.5 million followers across Twitter and Instagram. But against a backdrop of frequent mass shootings, and as he plays in a city that has struggled with gun violence, Morant has used his growing sphere of influence to model behavior that even he has acknowledged was harmful.

For years, the image-conscious NBA has endeavored to be seen as progressive, particularly on the fraught topic of gun violence. Many coaches and stars, like LeBron James and Stephen Curry, have spoken out about gun safety. The Golden State Warriors, last season’s champions, met with officials at the White House for a panel on the issue in January. Though it does not appear that Morant broke any of the league’s firearms rules with his videos — he didn’t bring a gun into a locker room, as two players were suspended for doing in 2010 — his carelessness has threatened to undermine the league’s efforts.

“The potential for other young people to emulate Ja’s conduct is particularly concerning,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. He added that the length of the suspension — about one-third of the season — was meant to show that “engaging in reckless and irresponsible behavior with guns will not be tolerated.”

Tamika Tremaglio, the executive director of the NBA players’ union, said in a statement Friday that Morant had shown remorse and that the punishment was “excessive and inappropriate.” She added that the union would “explore with Ja all options and next steps.” The NBA said it had suspended Morant for conduct detrimental to the league.

In early March, the NBA suspended Morant for eight games after he

livestreamed video on Instagram as he laughed and brandished a firearm in a nightclub near Denver after a game. Morant apologized and said he had checked into a health facility in Florida to better deal with stress. Then, on May 13, one of Morant’s friends streamed video of him waving a gun as he rode in a vehicle. The Grizzlies suspended him indefinitely, and Silver told ESPN he was “shocked.”

Kris Brown, the president of Brady, a nonprofit that works to curb gun violence, said she found it “appropriate” that the NBA had taken action to penalize Morant.

“Firearms may be a tool in some instances, but they can also kill, maim and injure other people if not handled and stored properly,” Brown said. She added: “Public figures have a responsibility to be held accountable for how they engage on these kinds of life-and-death issues. It’s not a small thing. People could die if they handle firearms in such a cavalier way, and they do every day.”

In 2015, the NBA worked with Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that supports gun safety legislation, to create commercials with star players and shooting survivors discussing gun violence. The ads were timed to air during the league’s marquee Christmas Day slate of games.

Last May, after 19 students and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, NBA teams in the playoffs displayed messages at their arenas asking fans to urge their political representatives to pass “common sense” gun safety legislation.

But even as the NBA has adopted an outwardly progressive stance on gun safety, its comments have not been in line with the actions of several of its team owners. Among others, Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, the New York Knicks’ James Dolan and the DeVos family, which owns the Orlando Magic, have all donated to prominent Republican politicians who have opposed tighter gun restrictions.

The NBA’s collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union prohibits players from carrying firearms in any league- or team-operated facility, which includes team planes.

Tremaglio, the union’s executive director, said in her statement Friday that Morant’s punishment was “not fair and consistent with past discipline.” In addition to the 25-game suspension, Morant will have to meet certain unspecified conditions and, Silver said, “formulate and fulfill a program with the league that directly addresses the circumstances that led him to repeat this destructive behavior.”

The NBA had been investigating the second video since the middle of May but had delayed releasing the findings until after the NBA Finals. The Denver Nuggets won their first championship Monday by defeating the Miami Heat in five games. Morant’s Grizzlies had been eliminated from the playoffs at the end of April.

Before Game 1 of the NBA Finals on June 1, Silver said it would be “unfair” to the Nuggets and the Heat to announce the Morant results while they were still competing.

There was also a business reason to wait: The NBA Finals are as much an advertisement for the league as they are a clash of two conference champions.

“You don’t want it to be the story that gets talked about during the finals,” said Lawrence Parnell, the director of the strategic public relations program at George Washington University. He added, “It’s all about shaping the narrative to be about the players and about the game and not about someone who’s not even there.”

Contrast that with this week at the U.S. Open in golf, where much of the conversation has been about the pending, and heavily criticized, merger of the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf.

But Morant is not easily forgotten, and neither is gun safety.

Morant’s dynamic play made him a fixture on highlight shows, and he has led the Grizzlies to the playoffs three times. Morant will be entering his fifth season, having already made two All-Star teams. This spring, Nike released his first signature sneaker — typically a signifier of true NBA stardom.

The Grizzlies said in a statement that they respected the NBA’s decision to suspend Morant. “Our standards as a league and team are clear, and we expect that all team personnel will adhere to them,” the team said.

Morant, in his apology, asked for a chance to prove that “I’m a better man than I’ve been showing you.” But it may be difficult.

“I think there’s an opportunity to have a positive story come out of this for the league and for Ja Morant,” Parnell said. “But going to counseling and doing a mea culpa is not going to make any difference in his reputation.”

Kans Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant was shown waving around a gun at a nightclub in March and in a vehicle in May.

The San Juan Daily Star

The NCAA wants more money from TV. Maxing that out could prove tricky.

By BILLY WITZ

For more than 20 years, fans of college sports like softball, baseball, women’s basketball and more than two dozen others have known just where to find NCAA championships — on ESPN’s spectrum of channels.

The arrangement has worked well for both parties: The NCAA ensured that its top athletes would perform on a national stage, and ESPN added hundreds of hours of live programming to a college sports portfolio that is anchored by college football and men’s basketball games.

A sign of how comfortable the NCAA and ESPN were with their partnership came in 2011, when they agreed to a 13-year, $500 million renewal without the NCAA’s ever taking the rights to market.

Now, though, with that deal set to expire in a year, it is increasingly likely that the next media rights deal for those 31 championships will look much different from the current one, which has been widely criticized as undervalued — particularly for its marquee event, the Division I women’s basketball tournament.

Addressing the upcoming negotiations, Charlie Baker, who took office as the new NCAA president in March, pointedly acknowledged last week at a symposium on college sports that “we dramatically underperform across a whole bunch of other revenue-raising opportunities.”

The increase in interest in women’s basketball has amplified pressure on the NCAA to sell those tournament rights by themselves rather than in a bundle with other championships. Doing so could fetch about $100 million annually, according to one analyst. Such an unbundling, though, could risk leaving other sports on lower-profile platforms.

And while the women’s basketball tournament, coming off record-smashing attendance and television ratings, is heading to market at a seemingly opportune moment, the industry is in turmoil as broadcasters navigate a transition away from cable, which continues to bleed subscribers, and toward streaming platforms, which still have far smaller audiences.

There is much for the NCAA to consider. Have the interests changed at ESPN, whose parent company, Disney, is in the midst of slashing 7,000 jobs? What about at other networks, like CBS and NBC, which have fewer cable networks but do have fledgling streaming platforms? And might streaming-only companies like Apple, Amazon and YouTube, which have selectively begun to acquire sports rights, be players?

“The NCAA is a very political organization, and you’re living in a different world of politics than you were 10, 15, 20 years ago when these deals got struck,” said Chris Bevilacqua, a sports media analyst who previously advised the NCAA on media rights. “There are 500,000 NCAA student-athletes, and half are women, so there’s going to be a lot of political pressure to architect something that is consistent with that narrative of investing in women’s sports.”

That pressure stems from a 2021 NCAA basketball gender equity review, which was commissioned after widespread disparities were identified between the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments during the pandemic.

In the report, Ed Desser, a sports media analyst, estimated

then that if the rights to the women’s tournament were sold on their own, they could have fetched between $81 million and $112 million for the 2025 tournament.

ESPN paid close to $50 million for the 31 championships this year, including the women’s basketball title game, which drew a record 9.9 million viewers on ABC.

“The value has only increased” since his estimate two years ago, Desser said in an interview. He cited not only the increase in attention for the women’s tournament, but increasing interest in professional women’s basketball and soccer leagues.

Still, the surge in interest in women’s sports has not necessarily translated to a boom in rights fees. In soccer, for example, FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, threatened blackouts in several European countries of games from this summer’s Women’s World Cup before a deal was struck this week. Broadcasters were hesitant to meet FIFA’s asking price for the games, which were being sold as stand-alone properties for the first time. Previously, they were bundled with the rights to the men’s World Cup.

Women’s basketball history over the last 30 years has been dotted with spikes and plateaus. The rise of Connecticut as a foil to Tennessee dovetailed into the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where the United States romped to the gold medal, a dominant run that helped start the NBA-backed WNBA a year later.

By 2012, interest in the college sport had stagnated to the point that the NCAA commissioned Val Ackerman, the first president of the WNBA, to study how to bolster interest in the game.

During the pandemic, as many sports were shut down, the murder of George Floyd prompted a wave of social activism in the United States. The WNBA and women’s college basketball leaned into that, and among other causes they questioned the many differences with the men’s versions of their sports, including the inequitable weight rooms (and coronavirus tests) during the 2021 men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments. More recently, another cause arrived: the detention of the WNBA star Brittney Griner in Russia.

All this happened amid the loosening of NCAA rules prohibiting athletes from signing endorsement deals. That amplified the personalities of the top college women’s players, who, unlike the men, are not allowed entry into the WNBA until they turn 22 (in their draft year) or graduate from college. In recent years, players like Sabrina Ionescu, Paige Bueckers, Aliyah Boston and

Caitlin Clark became nationally known.

“We said it might take a generation” to gain a foothold, Ackerman said of the start of the WNBA. “Now, the question for me is can this vibe be taken advantage of commercially? Will there be more tickets at higher prices? Will sponsors be paying higher rights fees? That’s the test here. That’s what’s being put to market.”

This is, however, a complicated time to go to market.

Even though cable subscriptions continue to plummet and nascent streaming platforms continue to build subscriber bases, there remain far more cable viewers than streaming viewers. (ESPN is in 72.5 million homes this month, according to Nielsen; ESPN+ has 25.3 million subscribers, a spokesman said.)

Such uncertainty is likely to shorten any NCAA deals.

Mike Aresco, the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference and a former CBS and ESPN executive, said media companies had generally preferred contracts of a decade or longer so they could focus on building up the telecasts instead of renegotiating the rights.

But lengthy deals have left the Pac-12 and Atlantic Coast conferences far behind the Big Ten, whose decision in 2017 to renew its media rights for just six years set it up for a seven-year, nearly $7 billion deal that begins this football season. It is also difficult to predict what the streaming and cable worlds will look like in five years, let alone 10.

“Everybody is rethinking how far out we’ll go,” Aresco said. “It’s not an exact science. In fact, it’s probably more art than science.”

The upcoming negotiations will be different from those of a professional sports league, the increasingly professional nature of college sports notwithstanding.

The NFL, for example, might be expected to extract every last dollar from a deal. The NCAA, even with Baker’s insistence that the governing body must get better at increasing revenue, will have other considerations.

“It’s a principle-based conversation,” said Julie Roe Lach, the commissioner of the Horizon League and a member of the NCAA women’s basketball oversight committee. “It can’t just be monetary. It can’t be as simple as which network is going to give the most money. There has to be a genuine commitment to grow the game.”

Julie Cromer, the athletic director at Ohio University and a co-chair of the committee that rewrote the NCAA’s constitution last year, believes Olympic sports are natural candidates to have their profiles elevated. She pointed to her time at Arkansas, where the university’s indoor track and field team drew several thousand fans for its home meets, which prompted the university to livestream its events.

One such sport would be lacrosse. Far down the sporting food chain, it has an anchor in the Northeast, but a decadeslong push westward has been slow. When ESPN broadcast the men’s and women’s championships back to back on Memorial Day, it lent a big-time air to the event.

“Lacrosse has been searching for that for a long time,” said Joe Spallina, the women’s coach at Stony Brook University, whose regular-season game with top-ranked Syracuse was shown on ESPNU. “That’s one of the problems with growing sports — everyone wants to get to the top immediately.”

A record number of fans watched Louisiana State win the N.C.A.A. Division I women’s basketball title this year.

Sudoku

How to Play:

Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9.

Sudoku Rules:

Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Aries (Mar 21-April 20)

Don’t feel badly about things you have no control over, Aries. Tonight it would be good for you to go out and have a nice time. Put aside your responsibilities and concentrate on fun. It might be difficult to jump-start others to action, but don’t let that concern you. If people don’t want to budge, don’t force them. They will move when they’re ready.

Taurus (April 21-May 21)

You may find it hard to sit still today, Taurus. People may pull your chain right and left in order to get a rise out of you. Whatever seems grounded and solid may end up being flimsy and detached. Beware of where you step. The ground is apt to give way with little warning. Your appetite may be ravenous, but it’s likely there won’t be nearly enough nourishment to satisfy you.

Gemini (May 22-June 21)

Be careful who you trust today, Gemini. Instead of venturing out, you might prefer to stick close to home and enjoy the comforts you’ve worked so hard to attain. Don’t entrust just anyone with your secrets. Information is likely to be misinterpreted and what you say might not be taken as seriously as you’d like it to be.

Cancer (June 22-July 23)

What looks like solid ground may be quicksand, Cancer. Be careful where you step. There’s an element of misunderstanding to the day that might make it difficult to get through to people. The good news is that your emotions are quite solid. Your inner stability should help you keep a healthy frame of mind, regardless of the events that transpire.

Leo (July 24-Aug 23)

What looks like solid ground may be quicksand, Cancer. Be careful where you step. There’s an element of misunderstanding to the day that might make it difficult to get through to people. The good news is that your emotions are quite solid. Your inner stability should help you keep a healthy frame of mind, regardless of the events that transpire.

Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)

Your emotions may be playing tricks on you, Virgo. You may find it hard to deal with reality. Take the day to relax and unwind. Don’t worry about the details. Concentrate more on your general state of mind. Things will go smoothly when you focus on radiating positive energy to others. Don’t worry so much about the consequences. Focus more on the process.

Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)

You might find it hard to make progress with your projects today, Libra, especially if you need others’ help. There’s a stubborn quality to the day that’s causing things to get jammed up. When neither party budges, the result is chaos. You might have to give a little in order to get a little. Be the first one to release your grip and things will run more smoothly.

Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)

This should be a pretty good day, Scorpio. You will find a greater than usual sensitivity to your needs. One thing to be aware of is fast talkers who might make elaborate promises that they have no intention of keeping. Slow and steady wins the race, and you’re the master of this technique. Your patience and sensitivity are invaluable on a day like this.

Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)

Sagittarius, you may have recently built fanciful scenarios in your head regarding how you think things should be, in either a romantic, business, or family situation. It’s likely these images will conflict with reality as you discover that you need to take a much more analytical approach to what you have going.

Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)

The place you arrive at today may not be quite what you expected, Capricorn. Once you get there, you will find that there is sudden opposition in your camp. Things may not always be exactly what they seem, so check your facts before you make any major decisions. It’s better to get the information right from the source rather than depend on what you hear through the grapevine.

Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)

Your actions might be a bit strained today, Aquarius. People aren’t going to cooperate in the way you might like them to. It could be one of those days in which it’s difficult to get things done simply because other people seem to get in the way. Try not to get angry. Perhaps you need to take a break and relax. The harder you push, the more resistance you will encounter.

Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)

Your actions might be a bit strained today, Aquarius. People aren’t going to cooperate in the way you might like them to. It could be one of those days in which it’s difficult to get things done simply because other people seem to get in the way. Try not to get angry. Perhaps you need to take a break and relax. The harder you push, the more resistance you will encounter.

Speed Bump